Ethical issues Flashcards
What are ethical issues?
Ethical issues arise in psychology when a conflict exists between participants rights and researchers need, to gain valuable and meaningful findings
For instance, a researcher may not wish to reveal the true purpose of a research study to participants in order to study more ‘natural’ behaviour, which misleads participants
What is the British Psychological Society (BPS)?
The BPS is a society that sets and upholds high standards of professionalism and promotes ethical behaviours, attitudes and judgment giving the decision-making for all members
What are the 4 main ethical principles?
- Informed consent/withdrawal
- Deception
- Protection of participants from harm
- Privacy & confidentiality
What is informed consent?
Participants must be given comprehensive information concerning the nature and purpose of a study and their role in it to be able to make an informed judgement about whether to take part
These include
- Aims of research
- The procedures
- Their rights to withdraw
- What their data will be used for
What is deception?
Deception means deliberately misleading or withholding information from participants at any stage of the investigation
Researchers should avoid deceiving participants where possible. However, the BPS recognises that there is a difference between falsely informing participants about the aim of the study and withholding some information about the aims of the study
What is protection from harm
Investigators have a primary importance to protect participants from any physical/mental harm during the investigation
- Participants should not be exposed to harm any greater than would normally occur in everyday life
- Physical and psychological harm (e.g. stress damage to self image, under pressure)
- Participants should leave (rights to withdraw) the study unchanged from how they entered it (debriefing)
What is privacy and confidentiality?
- All data should be confidential, all participants should be anonymous and unidentifiable (e.g. through use of numbers; not recording names etc)
- Confidentiality refer to our right, protected under the Data Protection Act, to have any personal data protected)
- The right to privacy extends to the area where the study took place, such as institutions
- Participants right to privacy must be respected since invasions of privacy may affect well-being and raise confidentiality issues
What is an ethics committee?
An ethics committee is a body responsible for ensuring that medical experimentation and human subject research are carried out in an ethical manner
What is the role of an ethics committee?
The role of ethics committees is to make judgements about the costs and benefits involved in carrying out individual pieces of research.
Dealing with informed consent?
Participants should be issued with a consent letter or form detailing all relevent information that might affect their decision to participate. Assuming the participant agrees, this is then signed. For investigation involving children under 16, a signature needs to be obtained from their legal parent/guardian
What is presumptive consent?
Asking a sample of the target population if they would be happy to take part (but not the sample used in the study)
Dealing with deception and protection from harm
At the end of the study, participants should be given a full debrief. Participants should be made aware of the true aims of the investigation and any details they were not supplied with during the study
Participants should be told what their data will be used for and must be given the right to withdraw/rights to withhold data
if participants have been subject to stress they may require counselling
Dealing with confidentiality and privacy
Personal details must be protected e.g. maintain anonymity. Researchers must refer to participants using numbers or initials when writing up their data
When ppts are debriefed they are reminded that their data will be protected throughout the process.
