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Founding of Wilhelm Wundt Laboratory
The Wilhelm Wundt Laboratory in Leipzig, Germany was the first psychological laboratory in the world. -
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Tuskegee Syphilis Study
In Macon County, Alabama, over 600 impoverished black sharecroppers were exploited by the United States government to study "racial differences in the clinical manifestations of syphilis." The Tuskegee Institute allowed these men to not only be left uninformed of their condition but to be denied access to a cure for forty years. By the time the study met public outrage, many participants had died, and their spouses and children had been infected as well. -
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Nazi Concentration Camp Experiments
Under the Nazi regime, inhumane experiments were conducted on various minority groups, and anyone not considered part of the "Aryan race." So-called "experiments" included sleep deprivation, starvation, unnecessary surgeries without anesthesia, and various forms of torture. -
Nuremberg Code
It was created in the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg, Germany. An ethics guideline for future human research, written in response to the inhumane experiments conducted on humans in Nazi concentration camps. Led to Nuremberg Trials. -
APA Committee on Ethical Standards for Psychologists
The American Psychological Association established this committee to create a set of professional standards that would provide psychologists with a set of values and practical techniques for identifying and resolving moral issues. The final draft of this code of conduct was published in 1953. -
Tearoom Trade Study
Laud Humphreys, a social psychologist, pretended to be a part of a homosexual community in order to observe and research intercourse occurring in public spaces or "tea rooms." Humphreys was criticized for not receiving consent from his subjects and deceiving them in order to obtain information. -
Belmont Report
The National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research met in the Belmont Conference Center at Howard Community College to release the Belmont Report, which provided ethical guidelines for research as well as clarified the distinction between therapeutic practice and research. -
Title 45 Public Welfare
A watershed federal law was implemented for human participants in scientific research in the Code of Federal Regulations under Title 45 Public Welfare, of the Department of Health and Human Services, Part 46 Protection of Human Subjects. It covered human subjects in general, but also pregnant women, incarcerated prisoners, and children.