Ethics

• One ethical issue is deception - This is when the participants are not told the true aim of the study deliberately to prevent participants from showing demand characteristics
• To deal with deception:

  • Debriefs can be used - a post research interview where the participant is told the true aims (1) of the research and full details of the study are given, e.g. knowledge of any other experimental groups
  • Participants should be given the right to withdraw their data from publication
  • Participants must be reminded that their behaviour is typical/normal of the general public, they may also be offered counselling
• One ethical issue is (lack of) informed consent - This is where participants give permission to take part in the study after being informed of the true aims of the research, as well as being given the right to withdraw
• To deal with (lack of) informed consent:

  • Participants should be given a consent form detailing the true nature and aims of the study
  • A child under 16 cannot give consent
  • If consent wasn't gained from the participants in the study, a debrief should be given and participants can give retrospective consent, they may also with to withdraw their data if they do not consent
• There are 3 other ways to gain consent:

  1. Presumptive consent - Gaining consent from a similar set of participants who won't actually be doing the study
  2. Prior informed consent - Getting general consent from participants of things that 'could' happen
  3. Parental consent - When participants are too young to give consent, this is gained from parents
• One issue is (lack of) protection of participants - Participants should be protected psychologically and physically, they must not be placed at more risk than they would be in everyday life
• To deal with (lack of) protection of participants:

  • Right to withdraw - Participants should be offered the right to withdraw at any point during or after the research has taken place
  • Debrief - Reassure the participants that their behaviour is normal, offer counselling to all participants
• One issue of (lack of) confidentiality - Ensuring participants details and data remain anonymous so they cannot be identified in the research, the researcher could use fake (pseudo names) names/initials
• To deal with (lack of) confidentiality:

  • Anonymity - All personal details should be kept anonymous