Week 4.2

Question 1

What did Milgram’s study lead to?

Answer 1

Milgram’s study led to many significant changes in research ethics

Question 2

Define Informed Consent

Answer 2

• Whenever possible investigators should obtain the consent of participants. In practice this means it is not sufficient to simply get potential participants to say “Yes”.
• They also need to know what it is that they are agreeing to. In other words the psychologist should explain in plain language what is involved in advance and obtain the informed consent of participants.

Question 3

What do you need to do for informed consent

Answer 3

• Need to give participants enough information to give them informed consent (know what they’re getting into)
• Needs to be in plain language - clear enough for the general community

Question 4

What happens if you want to conduct study nowadays involving deception?

Answer 4

• Have to be creative enough to conduct experiment without deception
• If you want something published in Australian, American journals, needs to adhere to ethics (can’t just conduct experiment in Peru or something)

Question 5

Potential issue with ethics committee

Answer 5

Ministers or religion? To give ethical/moral perspective?

Question 6

Define debriefing

Answer 6

• After the research is over the participant should be able to discuss the procedure and the findings with the psychologist. They must be given a general idea of what the researcher was investigating and why, and their part in the research should be explained.
• Participants must be told if they have been deceived and given reasons why. They must be asked if they have any questions and those questions should be answered honestly and as fully as possible.

Question 7

What do you need to debrief participants on

Answer 7

Need to report if people have a negative reaction

Question 8

Issues with debriefing in current studies

Answer 8

• When participants, you don’t really get any feedback about study - don’t know who was in the sample, don’t know that it’s published etc.

Question 9

Define protection of participants

Answer 9

• Researchers must ensure that those taking part in research will not be caused distress. They must be protected from physical and mental harm. This means you must not embarrass, frighten, offend or harm participants.
• Normally, the risk of harm must be no greater than in ordinary life, i.e. participants should not be exposed to risks greater than or additional to those encountered in their normal lifestyles.

Question 10

Define deception avoidance

Answer 10

This is where participants are misled or wrongly informed about the aims of the research. Types of deception include

• deliberate misleading, e.g. using confederates, staged manipulations in field settings, deceptive instructions
• deception by omission, e.g., failure to disclose full information about the study, or creating ambiguity.

The researcher should avoid deceiving participants about the nature of the research.

Question 11

What do you want to do in deception avoidance

Answer 11

Want to set up trusting relationships, not deceptive relationships

Question 12

Define confidentiality

Answer 12

Participants, and the data gained from them must be kept anonymous unless they give their full consent. No names must be used in a research report.

Question 13

What do we do if we find out something which should be disclosed (e.g. commission of a criminal act)?

Answer 13

Researchers have no legal obligation to disclose criminal acts and have to determine which is the most important consideration: their duty to the participant vs. duty to the wider community.

Not obligated to report but if something involving children (e.g. sexual abuse) may have different rules

Question 14

Where does confidentiality need to be outlined to participants?

Answer 14

Needs to be in consent form

Question 15

Other potential issues with confidentiality

Answer 15

Online survey - have your IP address