Ethics

• What are ethics 


  a set of rules and guidelines that psychologists must follow in order to protect their participants
• What is the BPS


  the British Psychological Society - issue ethical guidelines/considerations
• What are the four ethical principles

  • respect
  • responsibility
  • integrity
  • competence
• Respect 


  respect the individual rights of your participants e.g right to privacy, their intelligence to make informed decisions and the differences between your participants etc
• What is responsibility 


  upholding responsibility to keep participants safe within research (psychologists value their responsibilities to the general public and to the profession and science of psychology)
• What is integrity


  being truthful and honest in research
• What is competence


  competent as a researcher to remain as ethical as possible, follow the guidelines properly or make suitable adjustments to overcome any that are broken
• The 6 ethical guidelines and the principals they fall under

  • informed consent = respect
  • right to withdraw = respect
  • privacy and confidentiality = respect
  • protection of participants = responsibility
  • debriefing = responsibility
  • deception = integrity
  • all of them fall under competence
• What is informed consent


  participants should be told (the nature, purpose and anticipated consequences) the true aim of the research, and ideally the researcher should gain informed consent at the beginning of research. if participants are under the age of 16 consent needs to be gained from parents/guardians
• What is right to withdraw


  investigators should make clear to participants their right to withdraw from the investigation at any time irrespective of payment or other inducement. if a participant withdraws they have the right to demand their own data and recordings to be destroyed
• What is privacy and confidentiality 


  participants privacy should be respected and in the case of observations research you should only expect to be observed in a 'public place'. all results or information gathered relating to specific individuals must be kept confidential. names or details (use numbers/initials instead) of participants should not be released. participants should be made aware where any breech of confidentiality may occur
• What is protection of participants


  researchers must not cause any physical or psychological harm to participants. they should leave a study in the same state that they entered
• What is deception


  intentional deception such as lying to participants, misleading them about the aims (not same as informed consent) or other aspects involved must be avoided as much as possible unless deception is necessary (remove demand characteristics) in exceptional circumstances to preserve the integrity of research
• What is debriefing 


  a way to overcome breaking ethical guidelines after a piece of unethical research has been conducted is to debrief your participants. done at the end of the study, it is the researcher's responsibility to provide participants with any necessary info they need to complete their understanding of the study and check that participants haven't suffered any harm psychological or physical harm. if the participants had been deceived in any way or consent not gained the researchers should fully explain the true purpose (address any violations)
• How can the ethical guidelines be upheld

  • debrief
  • anonymise participants
  • give right to withdraw
  • Dr/psychologist on hand
• What are the costs of breaking ethical guidelines

  • destroys the integrity and reputation of psychological research and psychology as a whole - this is a weakness as it results in less research being approved which limits the usefulness of psychological research
  • reduces the likeliness of future funding/future participants - this is a weakness as not much research will be conducted which will limit our knowledge of complex psychological behaviour
• What are the benefits of breaking ethical guidelines


  • increases our knowledge of complex unethical behaviours such as certain disorders - this is a strength as it increases our knowledge so increases usefulness
  • reduces the risk of demand characteristics (i.e if people are deceived) - this is a strength as results are more valid and credible