<p>1 Running head: THE ETHICS OF ANIMAL TESTING IN PSYCHOLOGY</p><p>The Ethics of Animal Testing in Psychology</p><p>Tyler Lane</p><p>Appalachian State University [Type text] [Type text] [Type text] 2</p><p>Animal testing is widely used by countless different companies and institutions today, each for their own reasons. Controversies surrounding this issue have made headlines consistently for years, and many people tend to adopt a radical view one way or the other. Some claim that animals and humans are completely different, and that animals should not be given the same rights as humans when it comes to issues of safety and health. Others argue that animals and humans really aren’t that different, and that humans shouldn’t treat animals cruelly and inhumanely just because they can. In general, animal testing is often done by companies interested in the cheapest possible methods, often with little regard to harm inflicted upon the animals. In psychology, animal testing is used not for financial gain, but to gain a greater understanding of human nature. The motives are scientific, not economic, and findings from countless studies using animals have had massive benefits not only to the field of psychology, but also to society as a whole. Although animals may suffer physical pain or discomfort, or unpleasant psychological ramifications at the hands of researchers, psychological animal experimentation is for the benefit of mankind as a whole and should not be viewed as unethical. </p><p>One of the most well known studies using animals as subjects is Harry Harlow’s </p><p>“Monkey Love” experiment conducted in the 1950s. Harlow was interested in infants’ attachment to their mothers, and wanted to understand exactly what precipitates this crucial bond. Before he conducted this study, it was a common belief that infants attached to their mothers because they provided food for them, and that sucking for breast milk was critical to proper attachment (Harlow, 1959). Harlow chose to study attachment behavior in infant rhesus monkeys by removing them from their mothers only a few hours after birth and placing them in a cage with two “surrogate mothers”. One of the “mothers” was made of wire mesh and was equipped with a bottle to dispense milk; the other “mother” was covered with soft terrycloth and THE ETHICS OF ANIMAL TESTING IN PSYCHOLOGY 3 had a monkey-like head and face. Harlow observed that the baby monkeys would spend the vast majority of their time clinging to and cuddling the soft terrycloth mother, even though they depended on the wire mother for nourishment. This strongly implied that attachment in primates is not significantly influenced by the satisfaction of biological needs such as hunger, but much more so to physical touch and comfort (Herman, 2012). Still curious, Harlow conducted the study again, but instead of giving the infant monkeys a choice between two mothers, they were each given either a wire or a terrycloth mother equipped with a milk bottle. He observed that the monkeys ate the same amount and gained the same amount of weight regardless of which mother they were given, but the similarities stopped there. Harlow found that when he frightened the monkeys who had cloth mothers, they would run to them, cuddle with them, and eventually feel comforted and calm. The monkeys with wire mothers reacted quite differently to being scared; they would throw themselves on the floor, rock back and forth while clutching themselves, and scream in terror (Herman, 2012). At the beginning of his study, Harlow also removed four infant monkeys as a control group and gave them no surrogate mother at all. After eight months in isolation, the monkeys were permanently damaged and could not form any lasting emotional ties </p><p>(Harlow, 1959). </p><p>This study has been heavily scrutinized for the blatantly severe emotional disturbances inflicted upon the animal subjects and would likely not be approved for completion by today’s ethical standards. Although the suffering of those monkeys is undeniable, the findings of this study have huge implications for humans and have changed the way infant attachment is viewed.</p><p>We now know that an infant’s attachment to his/her mother has far more to do with physical contact and affection than it does with the act of nursing. Because of this study and other subsequent studies conducted on attachment, it is also now widely accepted that adoption is far [Type text] [Type text] [Type text] 4 more likely to produce more positive mental and emotional outcomes in children than an institution such as an orphanage (Herman, 2012). Although several monkeys had lifelong emotional and mental damage from this study, their suffering was not in vain due to all the important insights gained about human behavior. The same can be said of countless psychological studies using animal subjects; potential harm to animal subjects in experiments is worth findings that can be generalized to humans and give us one more invaluable shred of insight into our complex emotions, cognitions, and behavioral patterns.</p><p>Although psychological experimentation on animals is ethically sound, no completely defenseless animals should be subjected to grossly inhumane treatment or abuse at the hands of their experimenters. Today, there are several ordinances in place regarding how an experimenter can and cannot treat their animal subjects and many organizations upholding and enforcing these ethical guidelines. In 1985, the Animal Welfare Act was amended to include the care and use of animals in research, and it is the responsibility of the U.S. Department of Agriculture to enforce the Act by conducting unannounced inspections of all animal research facilities. In addition, institutions using animals covered by the Act must have all aspects of their research reviewed by an Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC), which must include a veterinarian and an unaffiliated member of the community (American Psychological Association [APA], n.d.). Surprisingly, some animals that are commonly used in experiments, such as rats, mice, and birds, are not covered by the Animal Welfare act, but there are regulations in place to protect these animals too. Any institution receiving a grant from the National Institutes of Health (the largest source of funding for behavioral and biomedical research with animals) must adhere to guidelines set by the Public Health Service (APA, n.d.). Aside from federal regulations, there are standards for animal treatment set by the scientific community as well. The American THE ETHICS OF ANIMAL TESTING IN PSYCHOLOGY 5</p><p>Association for the Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care (AALAC), recognized internationally as the authority on laboratory animal treatment, grants accreditation to institutions meeting their standards for proper animal care. Once an institution is accredited, they must undergo thorough inspections every three years to determine whether or not they may keep their accredited status (APA, n.d.). It is also noteworthy that virtually all scientific journals require assurance that any research performed on animals is done in accordance with particular ethical standards before agreeing to publish the research (APA, n.d.). Before jumping to the conclusion that animal testing is wrong, it is vital to understand how many regulations and organizations are in place to ensure the proper treatment of laboratory animals. These various agencies all serve to protect laboratory animals and to uphold ethical standards of research. </p><p>Despite the obvious benefits of animal testing in psychology, and all the agencies at work to protect animals in the laboratory setting, many are still strongly opposed to it. In fact, there is an international organization devoted to fighting it, the International Association Against Painful </p><p>Experiments on Animals (IAAPEA). The central argument of opponents of psychological animal testing is summarized in the IAAPEA (2012) article titled “Psychological & Behavioral </p><p>Animal Experiments and Research Testing”:</p><p>Yet for psychologists the researcher's central dilemma exists in an especially acute form...</p><p> either the animal is not like us, in which case there is no reason for performing the </p><p> experiment; or else the animal is like us in which case we ought not to perform an </p><p> experiment on the animal which would be considered outrageous if performed on one of </p><p> us. (IAAPEA, 2012)</p><p>Unfortunately, this drastically oversimplifies things. Humans are animals, just like the ones that are tested on in laboratories across the world, so of course results from studies performed on [Type text] [Type text] [Type text] 6 animals can often times be generalized to humans. However, no argument can be made that a human life is equally as precious and valued as that of another animal. Animals should never be deliberately mistreated for sport, convenience, or financial ease as they are in many other fields. </p><p>But when the object of research is to shed light into an area of the human psyche that otherwise remains in darkness, the gain (insight into emotions, cognitive processes, or behavior that can be generalized to the human population and potentially help people and create a better world) is hugely greater than the loss.</p><p>Animal welfare is not an issue that I take lightly. I have been a vegetarian for ten years because I refuse to support factory farming. I am firmly against testing cosmetics on animals. </p><p>But the contrast between animal mistreatment in these areas and in psychological research is stark: it’s the difference between financial ease and gaining scientific knowledge that could potentially help everyone, or at least some affected portion of the population. So many important insights about human emotions, cognitions, and behavior have been gained from animal testing, and there are agencies at work to prevent unnecessary harm to laboratory animals.</p><p>Psychological research using animals as subjects should not be viewed as harming animals but instead as helping all of mankind. THE ETHICS OF ANIMAL TESTING IN PSYCHOLOGY 7</p><p>References</p><p>American Psychological Association. (n.d.). Research with animals in psychology [Brochure]. </p><p>Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/research/responsible/research-animals.pdf</p><p>Harlow, H. F. (1959, June). Love in infant monkeys. Scientific American, 200, 68, 70, 72-74. </p><p>Retrieved from http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~adoption/archive/HarlowLIM.htm</p><p>Herman, E. (2012, February 24). Harry F. Harlow, monkey love experiments. Retrieved from </p><p> http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~adoption/studies/HarlowMLE.htm</p><p>International Association Against Painful Experiments on Animals. (2012). Psychological & </p><p> behavioral animal experiments and research testing. Retrieved from </p><p> http://www.iaapea.com/psychological_experiments.php</p>