Bathroom behavior and human dignity.

A recent article by Middlemist, Knowles, and Matter (1976) reported on a field experiment in a men's lavatory. Men who entered a "three-urinal lavatory" at a midwestern U.S. university were subjected to one of three conditions: The unknowing subjects either urinated "alone," directly adjacent to a confederate of the experimenter, or into one urinal at a distance removed from a confederate. Another researcher observed this behavior from a toilet stall via a periscope apparatus while using a stopwatch to record the "delay and persistence of micturation" (p. 543). The findings were analyzed and interpreted as offering objective evidence that invasions of personal space may produce physiological changes associated with physical arousal. The conduct of this research and the publication of it in a major journal raise significant questions about the current state of human dignity as determined by psychological researchers. Although freedom of scientific inquiry and the freedom of the press are supremely important, the judgment of both experimenters and journal editors in this case seems worthy of careful discussion. Disguised field experiments in public situations have long been considered important areas of inquiry, but they are also subject to important ethical considerations (see APA, 1973). The ethical principles adopted by APA make note of the narrow boundary between drawing on everyday experiences and