Ethics Flashcards
What are the four standards of the code of ethics and conduct?
1) Respect - privacy, confidentiality
2) Competence - psychologists should maintain high standards
3) Responsibility - psychologists should protect participants
4) Integrity - psychologists should value honesty, accuracy and fairness
What are the 5 ethical issues?
1) Informed consent
2) The use of deception
3) Right to withdraw from the investigation
4) Confidentiality
5) Protection of participants from harm
What is informed consent? What is a problem of this?
Participants should have sufficient information about the research aims and procedures so that they can make a judgment on whether they want to take part - researcher can obtain their informed consent.
Problem = giving participant full details may influence their behaviour.
What is the use of deception? What are two problems of this?
Participants should not be misled about the true aims of the research.
Problems = deception is often needed to avoid participants showing demand characteristics + can be deliberate - false information may be given as if revealed may affect the participants willingness to participate.
What is the right to withdraw from the investigation? What are two problems of this?
Participants should be informed that they can withdraw from a study at any point during the research and withdraw their data once results have been gathered.
Problems = Participants may still feel obliged to continue especially if being paid to + may not feel confident to ask to leave.
What is confidentiality? What are the two problems?
Information on participants taking part should be kept confidential. Any data gathered from the participants should not be personally identifiable.
Problems = details can make it obvious which person/institution the research is referring to (e.g the location) + researcher can discover information which should be disclosed (e.g the participant has committed a crime.)
What is the protection of participants from harm? What are the two problems?
Participants should be protected from any psychological or physical harm + humiliation and loss of dignity. The risks they are exposed to should not exceed what they would encounter in everyday life.
Problems = most studies result in participants feeling discomfort + hard to determine if the risks they are exposed to exceed what the would encounter in everyday life.
What are some of the main strategies to deal with ethical issues? Are there any limitations?
1) Adhering to the British Psychological Society Code of Conduct.
Limitation = removes responsibility from the researcher (Can say their research is ethical if they have followed the guidelines)
2) Discussing with an ethics committee.
3) Cost-benefit analysis (weighing up the two)
Limitation = not always easy to predict costs and benefits.
4) Punishments can be used if unethical
What are the methods used to deal with informed consent?
Obtain prior general consent -> informing participants that they will not be told everything - participants have a choice whether or not they consent to these terms.
Obtain presumptive consent -> informing a group of individuals who are similar to the participants about the full aims of the research - if they agree that they would give consent then researcher presumes the actual participant will too.
Obtain fully informed consent -> Ask participants to formally consent to the research after being given details about the aim and procedure.
What are the methods to deal with the use of deception?
Obtain prior general consent.
Debrief participants -> after research has been completed the participants should be informed of the true aims of the experiment.
What is the method used to deal with right to withdraw from the investigation?
Provide the right to withdraw - Researchers make sure the participants are told that if they feel uncomfortable they can leave the study at any point.
What is the method used to deal with confidentiality?
Avoid collecting personal details from participants - keep participants anonymous e.g use numbers or false names to identify participants.
What are the methods used to deal with protection of participants from harm?
Terminate research - stop research that could harm the participants.
Provide the right to withdraw.
Debrief participants.
