Middlemist Ethics Essay

386 Words2 Pages
The Middlemist study investigated whether there was a relationship between arousal and personal space invasion. The experiment was conducted in a men’s bathroom where there were 3 urinals in which the experimenter could control what stall was going to be used by each subject. An observer watched from a stall with a periscopic prism hidden by a stack of books and timed the delay and start of urination with two stopwatches. This experiment is ethical because there weren’t any rules that were violated. Confidentiality was kept because the observer could not see the subjects face at any time. There was no way of identifying the subjects unless the observer stepped out of the bathroom stall. Even though the subjects didn’t know they were being watched, deception had to be used in order for the experiment to be conducted properly. If the subjects would have been informed, this could have affected the delay and start of urination and skewed the data. Their rights weren’t taken away at any time during the study. The subjects had the choice of leaving the bathroom or using a stall if they didn’t feel comfortable with the current stall placement. A men’s bathroom is a public place and privacy of one’s personal space is not usual unless in a stall. This leads to the argument of naturalistic observation. The only thing controlled by the experimenter was the stall that each subject would use. A confederate was told to stand in a certain stall, and a mop and bucket was placed in another. This is something that could be seen in a men’s bathroom anytime. The situation in which the subject was put in could have happened in any other bathroom that wasn’t being controlled. The subjects were not put in any harm that would increase the risk level. Debriefing the subjects could have put the observer or anyone involved in the experiment in danger. The possibility of a

More about Middlemist Ethics Essay

Open Document