Psychological Experiments With Animals

Scientific and medical research involving the use of animals as test subjects has helped facilitate many breakthroughs. Animals are useful in such research because many experiments in which they're involved would be unethical if performed on humans and because certain animals have a physical and even psychological make-up similar to our own. However, such experimentation is not without controversy.

Guidelines

• Researchers are bound by ethical guidelines when using animals for any kind of testing. The Experimental Psychology Society, for example, requires the following conditions be met. An experiment cannot be performed using other techniques (such as computer technology) or human subjects. Researchers must use the fewest number of animals necessary, and must keep physical or psychological harm to an absolute minimum pursuant to the necessities of the research goals. Additionally, the research must be demonstrated to have legitimate scientific merit or potential social benefit.

Drug Abuse

• Animals have been used to examine the psychological mechanisms behind drug addiction. In such studies, researchers observe lab mice or monkeys who are given addictive substances and track how it impacts their psychology. One study performed in 1969 involved training monkeys to inject themselves with substances such as cocaine and morphine. Many of the animals developed traumatic psychological problems.

Social Psychology

• Studying the social psychology of animals -- how they interact with each other and other species -- is beneficial to seeing how they might act in nature and can also be extrapolated to human society as well. A famous study by Harry Harlow on "maternal deprivation" was structured so that young monkeys were separated from their mothers and "raised" by dummy imitations. The study indicated the importance of maternal contact in primates.

Criticism

• Conducting psychological research on animals remains controversial. Critics accuse the research of being manipulative or even destructive, and indeed, some psychological trials have permanently harmed their animal participants. Critics also claim that animals are poorly suited for studies of human psychology because they cannot duplicate the complex familial and cultural dynamics of human society.