Question

A researcher suspects that people who are abused as children tend to be more prone to severe depression as young adults. She prepares a questionnaire that measures depression and that also asks many personal questions about childhood experiences. Think about how an appropriate description of the purpose of this research would be written (to be read by subjects) in order to obtain their informed consent. You must balance the conflicting goals of not deceiving the subjects about what the questionnaire will tell about them and not biasing the sample by scaring off people with painful childhood experiences.Based on this criteria, which of the statements is an appropriate description of the purpose of the research, that would be read by subjects in order to obtain their informed consent? Pay close attention to the wording of each description. a. The purpose of this research is to study whether people who are abused as children tend to be more prone to severe depression as young adults. b. The purpose of this research is to study whether childhood abuse tends to cause severe depression in young adults. c. The purpose of this research is to study whether severe depression is a result of people having bad experiences in childhood. d. The purpose of this research is to study how childhood experiences are related to risk of depression. e. The purpose of this research is to study different experiences people have had in childhood.

Answer 1

d. The purpose of this research is to study how childhood experiences are related to risk of depression.

Explanation:

This answer satisfies the requirements of the question as it uses mild language that will not scare off respondents while also maintaining transparency and truthfulness. This can be seen in wordings such as;

a. Childhood experiences: Instead of explicitly using the term child-hood abuse which can scare off respondents, this phrase uses a milder form of the word that is also not dishonest in itself.

b. Risk of depression: Instead of using heavy terms such as "severe depression," or shady terms like "bad expreciences," the phrase, "risk of depression," helps the subjects to honestly identify what the question is about in a mild way.