The Use of Animals in Psychological Research: A National Study of Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees

该项目旨在跟进两项全国性调查，在这两项调查中，心理学家和心理学专业的学生被问及他们对在心理学研究和教学中使用动物的态度。本研究的重点将放在动物研究事业中一个重要但被忽视的方面--机构动物护理和使用委员会(IACUC)的作用。根据法律规定，这些委员会负责批准研究并确保实验动物得到人道对待。因此，它们为理解动物研究的科学和伦理判断所依据的决策过程提供了理想的工具。在拟议的研究中，50个IACUC将审查四个随机分配的动物研究提案，这些提案最近在另一个参与机构进行了审查。此外，在这些委员会任职的大约500人将被要求评估每个研究方案的不同方面(例如，科学价值、临床价值)，并完成较早前对心理学家的调查中的几个项目。委员会一级的数据和个别成员的数据的这种组合将被用来生成IACUC决策的统计模型，它们将首次允许对IACUC建议的委员会间可靠性进行定量估计。这些分析的目标主要有两个：了解与IACUC决策相关的心理因素，并提出旨在最大限度地提高议定书审查可靠性的政策导向战略。

This project is designed to follow up two national surveys in which psychologists and psychology students were asked about their attitudes toward the use of animals in psychological research and teaching. The focus of the present study will be on an important but neglected aspect of the animal research enterprise-the role of institutional animal care and use committees (IACUCs). As mandated by law, these committees are responsible for approving studies and for assuring that laboratory animals are treated humanely. Consequently, they provide an ideal vehicle for understanding the decision processes that underlie scientific and ethical judgments of animal research. In the proposed study, 50 IACUCs will review four randomly assigned animal research proposals that have been recently reviewed at another participating institution. In addition, the approximately 500 individuals serving on these committees will be asked to evaluate various dimensions of each research proposal (e.g., scientific merit, clinical value) and to complete several items from the earlier survey of psychologists. This combination of committee-level data and individual-member data will be used to generate statistical models of IACUC decision making, and they will permit, for the first time, quantitative estimates of the inter-committee reliability of IACUC recommendations. The goal of these analyses will be primarily twofold: to understand the psychological factors associated with IACUC decision making, and to suggest policy-oriented strategies designed to maximize the reliability of protocol reviews.