Ethical issues in Psychological Research

Question 1

Who designed the guidelines that are used for ethics in British psychological research?

Answer 1

The British Psychological Society has developed ethical guidelines for psychologists to follow when they are designing studies, so that participants are protected. They are formal principles for what is considered to be acceptable or unacceptable, and include advice on deception, consent, and psychological harm.

Question 2

What is informed consent?

Answer 2

1. BPS guidelines state that participants must always give informed consent,
2. They should be told the aims and nature of the study before agreeing to it,
3. They should know that they have the right to withdraw at any time,
4. If the participant is under 16 years of age, they cannot legally give consent (although a parent can),
5. In a naturalistic observation, consent is not obtained. In this case, the research is acceptable provided it is done in a public location where people would expect to be observed by others,
6. Even when informed consent is supposedly obtained, issues may be raised. Menges (1973) reviewed about 1000 American studies and found that 97% had not given people all the information about the research.

Question 3

What is deception?

Answer 3

1. If participants have been deceived then they cannot have given informed consent,
2. Deception is the withholding of information or the misdirection of participants about the nature of the experiment.
3. However, sometimes researchers must withhold information about the study because the participants wouldn’t behave normally if they knew what the aim was,
4. The severity of decption differs.

Question 4

How could a study get around deception?

Answer 4

1. BPS guidelines state that deception is only acceptable if there is strong scientific justification for the research and there is no alternative procedure available to obtain the data,
2. Researchers can also ask independent people if they would object to the study. If they wouldn’t, it may be done with naive participants (although they may not agree with others’ opinions about the study),
3. Participants could just be given general details - although if too little is said they may feel deceived.

Question 5

What is protection from harm?

Answer 5

1. The BPS guidelines say that the risk of harm to participants should be no greater than they would face in their normal lives; it is hard to accurately assess this,
2. Research procedures can involve physical and psychological discomfort, e.g. Glass and Singer (1972) exposed participants to noise to make them stressed, and participants in Milgram’s study experienced extreme distress.

Question 6

What issues are there with the protection from harm guideline?

Answer 6

1. Some people face risks in their work (e.g. soldiers), but that doesn’t mean they can be exposed to risks in research,
2. Researchers don’t always know in advance what might be distressing for participants.

Question 7

What is debriefing?

Answer 7

1. Debriefing is supposed to return participants to the state they were in before the research,
2. It is especially important if deception has been used,
3. Researchers must fully explain what the research involved and what the results might show,
4. Participants are given the right to withdraw their data.

Question 8

What is confidentiality?

Answer 8

1. None of the participants in a psychological study should be identifiable from any reports that are produced,
2. Data collected during research must be confidential - researchers can’t use people’s names in reports,
3. Participants must be warned if their data is not going to be completely anonymous,
4. However, some groups or people might be easily identifiable from their characteristics - more so if the report says where and when the study was carried out.

Question 9

What support is there for animal research?

Answer 9

1. People argue that animal research has provided valuable research for psychological and medical research,
2. Some experimental designs couldn’t have been conducted on humans, e.g. Harlow’s study on attachment.

Question 10

What ethical issues aren’t covered by the guidelines?

Answer 10

1. Some researchers don’t follow the guidelines properly,
2. If a psychologist conducts research outside the rules of the guidelines, they can’t be banned from research. But they can be kicked out of their university and the BPS,
3. Even when guidelines are followed, it can be difficult to assess things like psychological harm, or to fully justify the use of deception,
4. Deciding whether the ends justify the means is not straightforward either.

Question 10

Arguments against animal research?

Answer 10

1. Some may argue that it is ethically wrong to inflict harm and suffering on animals, and obviously animals can’t give consent to take part,
2. Some argue that it is cruel to experiment on animals that have a similar intelligence to humans, because they might suffer the same problems we would. It’d be fine to experiment on animals that are far less developed than us, but there is no point because they’ll be too different from us to give results that apply to humans.