ethical issues

• the BPS: ethics are standards that concern any group of professional people (solicitors, doctors, teachers) they all have documents advising what is expected of them in terms of right and wrong in their jobs there are sometimes referred to as codes of ethics
• the BPS: psychologists in the UK are advised by the British Psychological Society (BPS) the most recent Code of Ethics and Conduct (BPS, 2009) identifies 4 main principles
• the BPS: 1. respect for the dignity and worth of all persons, this includes standards of privacy and confidentiality and informed consent, intentional deception (lack of informed consent) is only acceptable when it is necessary to protect the integrity of research and when the deception is disclosed to participants at the earliest opportunity
• the BPS: 1. one way to judge acceptability is to consider whether participants are likely to object or show unease when debriefed, participants should be aware of the right to withdraw from the research at any time
• the BPS: 2. competence = psychologists should maintain high standards in their professional work
• the BPS: 3. responsibility = psychologists have a responsibility to their clients, to the general public and to the science of psychology, this includes protecting participants from physical and psychological harm as well as debriefing at the conclusion of their participation
• the BPS: 4. integrity = psychologists should be honest and accurate, this includes reporting the findings of any research accurately and acknowledging any potential limitations it also includes bringing instances of misconduct by other psychologists to attention of the BPS
• informed consent-researchers pov: informed consent means revealing the true aims of the study, or at least telling participants what is actually going to happen however revealing the details might cause participants to guess the aims of a study
• informed consent-researchers pov: e.g. a psychologist might want to investigate whether people obey a male teacher more than a female teacher, if the participants are told the aim of this experiment before the study takes place, it might change the way the behave - they might try to be equally obedient to both, researchers therefore may not always want to reveal the true aims or even the full details of what is going to happen
• informed consent-participants pov: they should be told what they will be required to do in the study so that they can make an informed decision about whether they wish to participate, this is a basic human right established during the Nuremberg war trials in the second world war nazi doctors conducted various experiments on prisoners w/o their consent and the war trials afterwards decided that consent should be a right for participants involved in any study
• informed consent-participants pov: even if researchers have sought and obtained informed consent that doesn't guarantee that participants really do understand what they have let themselves in for, Epstein and Lasagna (1969) found that only a third of participants volunteering for an experiment really understood what they had agreed to take part in
• informed consent-participants pov: another problem is the requirement for the researcher to point out any likely benefits or risks of participation, researchers are not always able to accurately predict the risks of benefits of taking part in a study
• deception-researchers pov: as we have just seen it can be necessary to deceive participants about the true aims of a study, otherwise participants might alter their behaviour and the study would be meaningless
• deception-researchers pov: a distinction however should be made between withholding some of the details of the research aims (reasonably acceptable) and deliberately providing false information (less acceptable)
• deception-participants pov: deception is unethical - the researcher should not deceive anyone w/o good cause, perhaps more importantly deception prevents participants being able to give informed consent, they may agree to participate w/o really knowing what they have let themselves in for and they might be quite distressed by the experience
• deception-participants pov: deception can also lead people to see psychologists as untrustworthy, it might further mean that a participant may not want to take part in psychological research in the future
• deception-participants pov: Diana Baumrind (1985) argued that deception is morally wrong on the basis of 3 generally accepted ethical rules in Western society = the right of informed consent, the obligation of researchers to protect the welfare of the participant and the responsibility of researchers to be trustworthy
• deception-participants pov: however others point out that sometime deception is relatively harmless e.g. a participant may have little reason to refuse to take part in a memory study (no distress, quick experiment) and therefore deception seems less objectionable
• the right to withdraw-researchers pov: if participants do leave during the study this will bias the results because the participants who have stayed are likely to be more obedient or they might be more hardy - leading to a biased sample
• the right to withdraw-participants pov: the right to withdraw from a study is important, if a participant begins to feel uncomfortable or distressed they should be able to withdraw, this is especially important if a participant has been deceived about the aims and/or procedures
• the right to withdraw-participants pov: however even if a participant has been fully informed the actual experience of taking part may turn out to be rather different so they should be able to withdraw
• the right to withdraw-participants pov: sometimes the right to withdraw is compromised by payment of participants or some other reward (psychology students are often given university credits for taking part in research) in such cases participants may feel less able to withdraw
• protection from physical + psychological harm-researchers pov: studying some of the more important questions in psychology may involve a degree of distress to participants, it is also difficult to predict the outcome of certain procedures (such as the Stanford Prison Experiment) therefore it is difficult to guarantee protection from harm
• protection from physical + psychological harm-participants pov: nothing should happen to them during a study that causes harm, there are many ways harm can be caused to participants some physical (e.g. getting them to smoke, or drink coffee excessively) and some psychological (e.g. making them feel inadequate or embarrassing them)
• protection from physical + psychological harm-participants pov: it is considered acceptable if the risk of harm is no greater than a participant would be likely to experience in ordinary life, and if participants are in the same state after a study as they were before unless they have given their informed consent to be treated otherwise
• confidentiality-researchers pov: it may be difficult to protect confidentiality because the researcher wishes to publish the findings, a researcher may guarantee anonymity (neither the researcher or anyone else is able to connect data obtained w/ any specific participant) but even then it may be obvious who has been involved in a study
• confidentiality-researchers pov: e.g. knowing that a study of children in hospital was conducted on the Isle of Wight could permit some people to be able to identify participants because the target group has been narrowed down
• confidentiality-participants pov: the Data Protection Act makes confidentiality a legal right, it is only acceptable for personal data to be recorded if the data are not made available in a form that identified the participants
• privacy-researchers pov: it may be difficult to avoid invasion of privacy when studying participants w/o their awareness e.g. in a field experiment
• privacy-participants pov: people do not expect to be observed by others in certain situations e.g. when in the privacy of their own homes, while they might expect this when sitting on a park bench in public
• can do can't do with participants