Túl az etikán – a humán kutatások kockázatérzékenysége és pszichológiai aspektusai
Authors: Csépe Valéria 
Published: October 2021

Összefoglaló. A humán kutatások eredményeit bemutató közlemények
számos adattal szolgálnak a megismerni kívánt jelenségre vonatkozóan.
Általánosan elfogadott elvárás a vonatkozó etikai szabályok szigorú betartása,
az előírt vizsgálati protokollok betartása. Az emberekkel végzett vizsgálatoknak
azonban van egy olyan dimenziója, amelyre az etikai szabályok nem térnek ki, s
amelyek a vizsgálati eredményeket, illetve azok reprezentativitását is
befolyásolják. Ezek mindegyike a pszichológia vizsgálódási területéhez tartozik,
legyen szó a pszichológiai kutatások etikai kérdéseiről, vagy az orvosbiológiai
kutatások, orvosi beavatkozások, illetve azok elfogadásának pszichológiai
aspektusairól. A tanulmány a pszichológia megváltozott etikai felfogásának rövid
bemutatását követően a genetikai kutatások pszichológiai aspektusait és az
egészség-magatartás kritikus kérdéseit elemzi. Az utóbbiak esetében a
kockázatészlelés, valamint a bizalom, megbízhatóság pszichológiai modelljeiből
kiindulva mutatja be az oltási hajlandóság és az oltásellenesség ismert
pszichológiai faktorait.

Summary. Publications presenting the results of human research
provide a wealth of data on the phenomenon to be explored. It is a generally
accepted expectation to adhere strictly to the relevant ethical rules and to the
required protocols. However, studies in humans have a dimension that is not
fully covered by ethical rules and that also affects the studies’ results and
their representativeness. All of these belong to the field of research in
psychology, be it the ethical issues of psychological research or the
psychological aspects of biomedical research, medical interventions, and their
acceptance. Researchers of these and other scientific areas widely believe that
science is morally neutral, that is, its task is the discovery of facts, the
further development of the investigations’ tools and methods to perform correct
analysis and draw reliable conclusions. However, research and development are
characterized by a kind of moral neutrality, the essence of which is that the
researcher not participating in the decisions on applications is neutral in
general. This means that the curiosity driven research should not pay attention
to risks associated with the use of results. However, many recent concerns
related to the long-term effects of broadly applied inventions speaks for the
need on consensus how the consequences could or should be forecasted.

Following a brief presentation of the changed ethical perception of psychology, I
give some examples on the psychological aspects of genetic research and that of
the critical issues in health behavior. Concerns psychological in nature have
been articulated in the last decade and it became increasingly clear that
genetic testing can also have psychological factors that must be considered.
Moreover, the recent focus on psychological aspects of human research shed light
on the complexity of health behavior, and questions have been raised about the
known psychological factors of the human reactions to suggested therapies,
especially those of the vaccination propensity, rejection, and anti-vaccination
movements. Although there are only a few systematic studies on this issue, the
proper solutions of the Covid-19 should consider the psychological aspects of
the acceptance and rejection of vaccination. We may consider that the first
waves of the Covid-19 epidemic created situations requiring altered
psychological coping, to which psychological research responded primarily by
examining the epidemiological situation, illness, and the resulting
psychological aspects of lifestyle (treatment of social isolation, stress
management, anxiety, depression). Therefore, scientific data on risk perception
and psychological factors of vaccine acceptance may contribute to preparedness
for globally predicted epidemics and decision-making processes.