Coursework: Using Animals In Psychological Research

Using Animals in Psychological Research
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Using Animals in Psychological Research
According to BBC.co.uk, (2014) the practice of using animals in research has been a common phenomenon for decades since findings from these studies have had a big impact on the development of medicine and an understanding of human health and biology. This, however, has been a subject of a heated debate altogether. Stakeholders in the debate have seen it to be morally wrong to subject animals to such kind of torture for human benefit (gfsbp.wordpress.com, 2011). It is not ethical to do this, but for the sake of inventions in the medical field, the researchers have no option, but to carry on with their experiments. Agitators for change have always campaigned for proper treatment of animals in experiments. In fact, there has been a call to have researchers observe the “three Rs” meaning: replace, reduce and refine.
To replace means, coming up with a substitute instead of real animals such as computer modeling or human volunteers. To reduce means, improvement of the techniques of experimentation and the sharing of information among researcher so that there is no duplication of the experiments with the same targeted results. Finally, the refinement comes in when the researchers are expected to treat animals in a humane way through the experiments, the pain and suffering to the animals should be at a minimum level and the improvement of medical care to the animals (bbc.co.uk, 2014).
What everyone should be aware of is that animals experience pain and fear the same we humans do an...