Some determinants of public acceptance of randomized control group experimental designs.

Abstract

This study explores some factors that might influence public attitudes about social experiments. Subjects read a supposedly real news account of a medical experiment in which the scarcity of the treatment employed and the amount of scientific justification for the experiment were experimentally varied. As expected, subjects reacted negatively to the experiment when explicitly informed that while there were adequate resources for all participants to receive the treatment, some participants were being deprived of treatment for scientific purposes. Contrary to expectations, subjects explicitly told that resources were scarce and that some participants would go without the treatment in any case, were less favorable toward the medical experiment and its administrators than subjects for whom scarcity was not mentioned. It was also found that the public's opinions were significantly improved when the scientific necessity for randomization was emphasized, especially when the potential usefulness of proven results was stressed. Few differences were found in comparing male and female responses, although female readers did evidence greater dissatisfaction with moral aspects of the experiment. Implications of the results for administrators of social programs are discussed.