Case
13417In 2014, the prestigious journal Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) published a study where researchers from Facebook and Cornell University collaborated to examine “emotional contagion.” Basically, the researchers wanted to know if emotions are contagious via online social networks.
So, over a one-week period in 2012, researchers manipulated the news feeds for a random sample of close to 700,000 Facebook users. For one group of users, researchers removed content that contained positive words; for another group, they removed content that contained negative words. The researchers then studied the content of subsequent status updates posted by the users. They found that users who were given more positive news feeds posted more positive things, and users who were given more negative news feeds posted more negative things. This, the authors of the study argue, demonstrates that emotions can be transferred between people online.
More than its conclusions, the methodology of the study created quite a stir. There was concern that an explicit informed consent was not gathered from users—the paper argued that agreeing to Facebook’s Data Use Policy (a policy to which all users agree to prior to creating an account on Facebook) constituted informed consent for this research. Participants were not debriefed after the study was completed. Further, because Facebook is a private entity, it did not have to go through an Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval process to conduct the study. On its part, the Cornell IRB concluded that no review by the Cornell Human Research Protection Program was required because the collaborators from Cornell “had access only to results and not to any data at any time.”
(Reference: Kramer, A. D. I., Guillory, J. E., & Hancock, J. T. (2014). Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111 (24), 8788-8790. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1320040111)
Step Two: Create a 4-6 page essay answering the following questions. Your finished product must include at least three outside resources, be presented in proper APA format, and should follow the rubric provided. You are encouraged to use our Online library: Gale.
Wikipedia is not an acceptable source.
Answer the following:
Defend a position supporting this study and address why there were no ethical violations based on what you have learned from your NIH certification.
OR
Defend a position against this study and address why there were ethical violations based on what you have learned through your NIH certification.
Do you believe this research was done for the greater good of the public? Why/why not?
What was the purpose of the study, why was it important to the research community?
Of the four cases presented in the lecture material, which case does this one most closely resemble in regard to manipulating participants’ emotions and why?
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