Socially sensitive psychological research can pose special ethical problems for the investigator. Socially sensitive investigations, by their very nature, are more likely to draw the attention of other psychologists, the media, and the general public. Ethical analysis relating to the research question, the research process, and the potential application of findings is particularly important under these circumstances. A rudimentary taxonomy is offered that contains four points in the research process at which ethical issues may arise and 10 types of ethical issues. This matrix offers social scientists a tool for increasing their understanding of ethical issues in socially sensitive research.

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Purpose of review To describe community engaged research (CEnR) and how it may improve the quality of a research study while addressing ethical concerns that communities may have with mental health and substance abuse research. This article includes a review of the literature as well as recommendations from an expert panel convened with funding from the US National Institute of Mental Health. Recent findings CEnR represents a broad spectrum of practices including representation on institutional ethics committees, attitude research with individuals from the study population, engaging community advisory boards, forming research partnerships with community organizations, and including community members as co-investigators. Summary CEnR poses some challenges; for example, it requires funding and training for researchers and community members. However, it offers many benefits to researchers and communities and some form of CEnR is appropriate and feasible in nearly every study involving human participants.

Tancredi, and William Thompson. Staff support was provided by Eric Meslin of APA and Denise Herrell of the University of Nebraska. The symposium was supported by APA through CPHPR, APA Divisions 12 (Clinical Psychology) and 37 (Child, Youth, and Family Services), and the Interdisciplinary Applied Ethics Program of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The individual papers presented at the symposium will be published in book form (Stanley, Sieber, & Melton, in press).

Decision-makmg situations typically require that one make a selection among alternatives vvnthout havmg suflBcient mformation to make an unequivocal choice In the face of such uncertamty, the decision maker usually engages m vanous behaviors (eg, acquisition of more mformation, reorganization of known information) instrumental in reducmg uncertamty and response confiict What determmes the nature and extent of such "predecision" mformation processmg behavior?Previous research (Lanzetta, 1963) has indicated that the amount of time devoted to mformation acquisition and amount of mformation acquired are related to the degree of response uncertamty generated by a problem, time pressures, and cost of mformation In addition, large and consistent individual differences m information acquisition and time utilization have been reported Correlations between individual search and time scores and several personabty and ability measures were, on the whole, low and msignificant Only measures of anxiety and achievement showed any significant relationship (low) to the dependent variables. High-anxious Ss took less mformation and time than low-anxious Ss, and high-academic achievers took more information than low achievers Much mdividual and problem variability remams unaccounted for, howeverThe present study is an extension of this work and focuses upon the effects of an mdividual's conceptual structure, problem uncertainty, and the importance of the decision on the amount of "predecision" information search, time/search response, sub-' This research represents the major portion of a M A thesis submitted to the Psychology Department of the Umversity of Delaware by the semor author Support for this study was provided by Crant #CS-3ii, Nationai Science Foundabon, and Contract #AF 33 (6i6)-762i, Aero Space Medical Laboratory, WADC The authors would like to thank Dean G Pniitt for the many fine cnbcisms and suggestions he contnbuted throughout this project Conflict and conceptual structure 623 jective uncertamty, and amount of new mformation generated. Predictions concemmg these vanables are denved from a model based on theories of arousal and conceptual structure.Accordmg to Berlyne (i960), stmiuh which are novel, complex, mcongnious, or surpnsmg tend to suggest a host of possible responses, thereby elicitmg conflict and response uncertamty The amount of conflict ehcited is a function of both response uncertamty and the "importance" of the problem (Importance is defined as S E, where E is the absolute magnitude of each competmg response ) Conflict leads to physiological arousal which motivates information acqmsition aimed at removmg conflict and reducmg arousalIn theory, an optimal (moderate) level of confiict ehcits maximum curiosity, leammg, and cognitive restructurmg, and extreme amounts of arousal are dismptive of behavior Physiological arousal is mamtamed at a relatively constant level by the reticular activating system when arousal is too low, mformation is sought from the environment or the memory (Heron, 1961), when arousal ...

To learn whether criticism and regulation of research practices have been followed by a reduction of deception or use of more acceptable approaches to deception, the contents of all 1969, 1978, 1986, and 1992 issues of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology were examined. Deception research was coded according to type of (non)informing (e.g., false informing, consent to deception, no informing), possible harmfulness of deception employed (e.g., powerfulness of induction, morality of the behavior induced, privacy of behavior), method of deception (e.g., bogus device or role, false purpose of study, false feedback), and debriefing employed. Use of confederates has been partly replaced by uses of computers. "Consent" with false informing declined after 1969, then rose in 1992. Changes in the topics studied (e.g., attribution, socialization, personality) largely accounted for the decline in deception in 1978 and 1986. More attention needs to be given to ways of respecting subjects' autonomy, to appropriate debriefing and desensitizing, and to selecting the most valid and least objectionable deception methods.

Ethics is normative; ethics indicates, in broad terms, what researchers should do. For example, researchers should respect human participants. Empirical study tells us what actually happens. Empirical research is often needed to fine-tune the best ways to achieve normative objectives, for example, to discover how best to achieve the dual aims of gaining important knowledge and respecting participants. Ethical decision making by scientists and institutional review boards should not be based on hunches and anecdotes (e.g., about such matters as what information potential research participants would want to know and what they understand, or what they consider to be acceptable risks). These questions should be answered through empirical research. Some of the preceding articles in this special issue illustrate uses of empirical research on research ethics. This article places empirical research on research ethics into broader perspective and challenges investigators to use the tools of their disciplines to proactively solve ethical problems for which there currently exist no empirically proven solutions.