IRBs for psychology really do seem needlessly bureaucratic. This is a case where a controlled experiment is not allowed, but the corresponding natural experiment would be (They would likely have gotten quick approval to investigate long-term outcomes of patients who had charted bipolar on this test). This is not the only time that I've heard of professional psychologists not being allowed to do something considered mundane and ethical as a course of their job if it were part of an experiment.
Yes I am aware of trauma caused to people in not just Nazi experiments but in many post-war studies (many of which were of dubious value). It seems like at some point we should decide one of the following:
A) Psychology has the potential to significantly alleviate suffering, so it's worth a risk of small harms in order to collect good data.
B) Psychology doesn't have the potential to significantly alleviate suffering, so we shouldn't do any of these studies.
Yes I am aware of trauma caused to people in not just Nazi experiments but in many post-war studies (many of which were of dubious value). It seems like at some point we should decide one of the following:
A) Psychology has the potential to significantly alleviate suffering, so it's worth a risk of small harms in order to collect good data.
B) Psychology doesn't have the potential to significantly alleviate suffering, so we shouldn't do any of these studies.