Some Determinants of Public Acceptance of Randomized Control Group Experimental Designs

Ethical ideology and judgments of social psychological research: Multidimensional analysis.

“…Extending previous attempts to better understand the link between moral evaluations and certain features of social psychological experiments (Hillis & Wortman, 1976;Schlenker & Forsyth, 1977), the current study succeeds in more comprehensively enumerating the key factors that influence ethical reactions to research. These findings, which are summarized in influenced by at least three general factors.…”

“…In recent years researchers have succeeded in identifying several factors that influence ethical reactions to research: the use of randomization (Hillis & Wortman, 1976), the nature of the results (Schlenker & Forsyth, 1977), the experimenter's prestige (Tanke, 1979), and the estimated scientific worth of the project (Wilson & Donnerstein, 1976). However, less attention has been paid to the possibility that individuals who differ in their moral outlook react very differently when appraising research.…”

Implications of socio-cultural contexts for the ethics of clinical trials.

“…But the same women may not object to randomised trials of chemotherapy against placebo, once the decision has been made that chemotherapy (rather than surgery or radiotherapy) is the best strategy for these women's treatment, individual by individual. 195,269 The nature of these objections is not necessarily connected with the trial alone, but also has to do with women's wishing to have more say over their own bodies and to make their own choices, and randomisation seems to take back one of the choices which the women's movement has fought for -the right for women to selfdetermination over their own bodies. The likelihood that illness has already compromised this power of self-determination, and that entry into the medical institution has alienated the patient still further from her sense of being in control of the situation make the significance of the right to choose even greater.…”

“…275 Where this is not possible, they should be counselled about the differential accompanying costs and risks. 269 The other main socio-cultural factor concerning randomisation relates to its fairness as a method of assigning a scarce novel therapy. We will return to this when we discuss justice issues more generally.…”

Is there a social cost of randomization?

“…Whether potential recipients regard randomization as fair has only been tested in a handful of studies, all of which are survey-based. Hillis and Wortman (1976) provide survey evidence showing that randomization for scientific purposes is perceived to be permissible when the study is scientifically necessary; however, these authors also find that scarce resources are not regarded as a sufficient justification for randomization. Innes (1979) found that college students reported high perceived moral justifiability of randomization of juvenile offenders into institutionalization vs. family therapy.…”