Ethical issues and ways of dealing with them

• Ethical issues

  Deception

  Informed consent

  Protection from harm

  Right to withdraw

  Confidentiality

  Did psychologists really care?
• Deception


  Deliberately witholding information from the participants at any stage of the investigation

  Participants who haven't been given adequate info can't give informed consent

  In some cases, deception can be justified if it doesn't cause the participants undue distress
• Informed consent

  Participants need to know the nature and duration of task and any other information that may affect their consent

  A - aims (general)

  P - procedures (nature and duration)

  E - Ethics (right to withdraw + confidentiality)

  Asking for informed consent may make the research meaningless as they know the aims

  
  

  Dealing with it:

  Participants should be issued with a consent letter containing all the relevant info that may affect their decision to take part
• Protection from harm


  Participants must not be exposed to any greater risk during the task than they would in their everyday life

  e.g: made to feel embarrassed or being put under stress/pressure
• Right to withdraw

  Participants should be able to leave the study at any time and they should be made aware of this right (before, informed consent, during the experiment and after the experiment)
• Confidentiality

  Right to privacy - keep details anonymous

  Extends to area where study took place - location not named
• DIP

  D - DECEPTION

  I - INFORMED CONSENT

  P - PROTECTION FROM HARM
• Deception

  Debrief

  Right to withdraw

  DR
• Informed consent

  Parental consent - Under 16s - parental consent required

  Presumptive - A random sample of the target population is asked if the study is acceptable. If this group agrees then the consent is presumed of the original participants

  Prior general - Before the research the participants will give consent to take part in a number of studies - one will involve them being deceived.

  PePPer
• Protection from harm

  Debrief

  Terminate

  Right to withdraw

  Does Terrible Resuscitation
• Dealing with deception and protection from harm

  Participants should get a full debrief at the end of the experiment that reveals what the deception was and why it was necessary

  Participants should be told what their data will be used for and they should be given the right to withdraw their data.

  Participants may have concerns with their performance and they should be reassured that their behaviour was what was expected of the study