ethical implications

• 4 british psychological guidelines

  consent, deception, harm, confidentiality
• ethical issue


  when the guidelines are broken
• ethical implications


  the impact psychological research may have in terms of the rights of other people, includes on a social level, influencing policy and regard of certain groups
• socially sensitive research 


  studies where the potential social consequences for the participants or the group of people represented by the study
• implications for the research question


  asking questions such as Milgram's may seem to add credibility to prejudice
• implications in dealing with participants

  did they find out anything that could cause psychological damage, could them or they're friends be affected
• implications in the way findings are used

  how the findings are used in society is it positive or damaging?
• examples of ethical implications in research

  MAOA gene (aggression)- socially sensitive findings- waldroup was not given death penalty even though he killed people is this an ethical use of the research?
• socially sensitive research could benefit groups


  SSR could benefit the group being studied e.g. kinsey conducted 5000 anonymous interviews with men about their sexual behaviour and concluded that homosexuality is a normal variant of human sexual behaviour. this illustrates the importance of researchers tackling topics that are sensitive (at that time)
• poor research design may have a long term impact 


  poor researcher design, such as including poorly constructed (biased) IQ test in research leading to educational opportunities (11+examinations) this has been shown to be unfair yet long term impact of the 11 plus exams has remained in place. research needs to be designed with care in order to avoid enduring effects on groups of people