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Apa Guidelines Violated in Miss Evers' Boys Essay

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In the film Miss Evers' Boys, several of the now-existing APA guidelines are violated to the extreme . The movie, which illustrates the Tuskegee Study conducted by a group of southern doctors in 1932, tells the story of a group of African-American men who are being unknowingly studied to see if untreated syphilis reacts the same way in African-Americans that it does in white men. At first, treatment is given to them but once the funds for the study are cut and treatment is no longer made available for 14,000 men, the study goes on without them knowing they have stopped receiving medicine. Miss Evers is told that once the government realizes they have continued the study, they will likely re-obtain funds within a year but the study goes on …show more content…

Part C of 8.07 says "Psychologists explain any deception that is an integral feature of the design and conduct of an experiment to participants as early as is feasible, preferably at the conclusion of their participation, but no later than at the conclusion of the data collection, and permit participants to withdraw their data." The doctors involved with heading the Tuskegee Study didn't tell the men that they were being deceived, even at the end of the experiment. In part A of section 8.06 of the APA Ethics Code, it says that "Psychologists make reasonable efforts to avoid offering excessive or inappropriate financial or other inducements for research participation when such inducements are likely to coerce participation." Once again, those heading the Tuskegee Study would have violated modern APA codes. At first, Miss Evers tricked the men into getting tested for syphilis under the pretense of giving them a hot lunch and a ride to a bar later. Later on, during the second part of the study where the men are no longer being treated, she suggests giving each of them fifty dollars. And finally, after the case has been brought to a judge, each of the survivor's families are awarded money. Some of the APA guidelines mentioned above were written just to prevent things like the Tuskegee Study from ever happening again, which was the most humane thing to do in a society where

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