Ethical Considerations in Research on Genie Wiley

The Background of Genie Wiley

Task:

Watch the video on Genie Wiley. You may also find this interview with researcher Susan Curtiss about her experiences with Genie interesting. What ethical considerations do you think apply to the research conducted on Genie (consider the APA's ethical principles and standards when answering)? Compare and contrast these ethical considerations to the ones most relevant to the classic examples of ethically dubious psychological research: the Stanford Prison simulation and Milgram's learning experiment I have attached a sample

Genie Wiley was finally rescued after 13 years in isolation. Genie was a 13-year-old girl, yet had the body of a 6-year-old due to extreme malnourishment. Genie’s father would strap her to a potty during the day and then chain her to her bed at night, with no clothes, food, or interactions of any kind (unless being yelled at or abused by the father). Once rescued, Genie had the help of child psychologist James Kent and linguist Susan Curtiss to help introduce her to the world. These psychologists took the opportunity to study the theory that young children could only learn certain things at certain times, called critical periods (Genie Wiley - TLC Documentary, 2003). Genie was proving this theory wrong by being able to learn words rapidly, and eventually even forming somewhat of a sentence. Genie did show deficiencies in grammar. Brains are smaller when they aren’t simulated, which was the case for Genie; she didn’t have the capacity to fully learn language (Genie Wiley – TLC Documentary, 2003). Genie really struggled with PTSD from such a traumatic childhood, she also never found a proper loving family outside of her therapists/ psychologists. When Genie was 18, she moved back into the house with her mother where she was abused, and eventually the mother couldn’t handle her and put her into state care. Genie moved home to home and even sometimes lived in the homes of her therapists. This eventually led to Genie’s mom filing a lawsuit against her therapists for being too involved with her life, her therapists could now no longer have any contact with Genie. Genie could no longer see the people who meant the most to her.

After watching the TLC Documentary on Genie Wiley, the ethical considerations I found include, according to the American Psychological Association  (2017): the violation of the human relation standard, multiple relationships 3.05, which occurred when Susan Curtiss agreed to be Genie’s therapist, yet let Genie stay at her home. They began to have a relationship outside of therapy. This then leads to conflict of interest 3.06, which can occur from multiple relationships. I also couldn’t help but wonder how the psychologist properly got informed consent 3.10 from Genie, how did they get her to understand the procedures and research that were to be done on her?  Not getting proper consent and participating in multiple relationships/ conflict of interest then poses a risk of harm 3.04. Possibly the research and publication standard may have been violated due to lack of informed consent, which goes into informed consent to research 8.02, informed consent on assessments 9.03 (Assessment standard), and informed consent to therapy 10.01 (Therapy standard). I also wondered how Genie could withdrawal from research or assessment if she truly didn’t understand what was being done.

Ethical considerations in the Stanford Prison Simulation include lack of fully informed consent by participants, as they were not fully aware of what would happen in the experiment; prisoners also didn’t consent to being arrested at home, and the participants playing the role of the prisoners were exposed to harm psychologically and physically (Haney et al., 1973). This relates to Genie’s case by not properly gathering informed consent from her to do assessments and research. There was also the possibility of harm due to the therapist being too involved in her case. Genie didn’t suffer any physical harm from the research done to her though.

Ethical considerations in Milgram’s Learning Experiment include deception, when the participants believed they were shocking a real person; potential harm, when participants were exposed to extremely stressful situations that had the potential to cause psychological harm; and participants not properly given the right to withdrawal from the experiment, the experimenter gave verbal prompts which discouraged withdrawal (The Milgram Experiment, 2017). This relates to Genie’s case in the sense that I feel she wasn’t aware that she could withdrawal from research and assessments at any time, or understood that should could withdrawal. Genie suffered from potential psychological harm from getting close to her therapist, due to the conflict of interest and multiple relationships, and then not being able to ever hear or speak to her again. There was no deception throughout Genie’s case, as the psychologist did take very good care of her, in they best way possible, and offered her ways of exploring the world and learning new things.