Ethics of a psychologist

Question 1

Importance of Deception

Answer 1

• You should not deceive participants by providing misinformation
• Sometimes a small amount of deception can be okay if it prevents the participant from acting artificially.
• Any deception that was used must be revealed at the end of the study.

Question 2

Importance of Confidentiality

Answer 2

• All results and data should be kept private and undiscussed
• Any data taken must be password protected and only shared with relevant people.
• Participants should be assigned numbers instead of using their names for confidentiality.
• You shouldn’t take data you don’t need such as age, gender or race if it’s not relevant to the study.

Question 3

Importance of Psychological Harm

Answer 3

• No harm should be caused to participants mentally or physically.
• There should be no reason to harm participants.
• They should leave in the same physical and mental state they arrived in.
• The only reason harm would be ethical is if the harm is no more than they’d experience in real life.
• You should be able to justify any harm caused and monitor the risks of that especially around vulnerable people.

Question 4

Importance of Debrief

Answer 4

• You should go through the experiment again with the participant after it’s been conducted.
• It’s important to remind the participant of the purpose of the study.
• You should also provide a contact detail in case the participant later decides to withdraw from the study.
• If the participant has been psychologically impacted then you must also provide support networks and places of contact for necessary support.
• Finally, double check that the participant wishes to continue and doesn’t want to withdraw.

Question 5

Importance of Consent

Answer 5

• Asking participants if they want to be involved.
• If the participants are under the age of 16, they need parental consent.
• Partial consent is where they act differently to fit the study (they haven’t given consent for their personality).
• Presumed consent is when you have a real sample and a fake sample, if you ask the fake sample if they want to be involved and they say yes, you assume the real sample would be okay with it.

Question 6

Importance of Objectivity

Answer 6

• Remaining impartial and not being biased or persuading the participant in your direction.

Question 7

Importance of Withdrawal

Answer 7

• Participants should be able to withdraw at anytime and claim their information and data.
• You cannot stop a participant from withdrawing or make them feel at all guilty or even refuse them the right to leave.
• Even if your study gets messed up, their mental state is more important.

Question 8

Importance of Competence

Answer 8

• Having the ability and competence to plan a good experiment.

Question 9

Importance of Observation

Answer 9

• You can observe people and their activity without consent as long as it’s in a public place (within reason) but anywhere private requires their consent.