ethical guidelines and committees

• both ethical guidelines and committees provide a set of moral principles that guide research from its inception through to completion and publication of results.
• psychologists become registered members of either the British Psychological Society (BPS,) or American Psychological Association (APA,) where they follow the codes of conducts and guidelines provided by them when designing and completing psychological research.
• all universities have ethics committees and it is their role to approve research before it can go ahead.
• one of these guidelines is the requirement to provide a debrief in order to overcome any ethical issues that may have arisen as a result of the research process, whether they were intentional or not.
• debriefing

  a method which aims to ensure participants are aware of the true nature of the study, overcoming any deception. It should return the participant back to their original state.