Ethical considerations

By Mr Daniel Hansson

Ethical issues

 An ethical consideration is a consideration of what is acceptable to do in a study. Researchers always have to balance between what they want to find out and the rights of participants.

Ethical guidelines

 Different professional organisations of psychologists have drawn up different set of guidelines or principles. Examples are American Psychological Association (APA) and British Psychological Society (BPS)

Common ethical considerations

 Informed consent  Use of deception  Protection from harm  The right to withdraw  Confidentiality  Privacy  Debriefing

Task

 Check what ethical considerations that was followed in your experiment

Informed consent

 Participants are formally asked to indicate their agreement to participate  They should be informed on the purpose of the experiment and their rights

Informed consent

 Participants might still not understand what they have let themselves into  May affect participants behaviour in the study  Presumptive consent can be given, i.e. asking a group of people whether they feel that the study is acceptable

Deception

   When the participant is deceived of the true aims of a study Is sometimes necessary because otherwise participants might alter their behaviour to fit experimenters ´ expectations Deception prevents participants to give informed consent. Participants might not want to participate in the future

Deception

 There should be strong scientific or medical justification for deception  Costs should be weighed against benefits  Participants may feel embarrassed or have lowered self esteem

The right to withdraw

 Participants have the right to withdraw at any time during the study  Participants may feel they should not withdraw because it will spoil the study

Protection from harm

 Avoid any situation that may cause a participant to experience psychological or physical damage

Confidentiality

 Researchers should not record the real names of any participants, they should use numbers of false names

Privacy

 Do not observe anyone without their informed consent unless in a public space  Not always acceptable to observe in a public space, e.g. lovers on a park bench

Debriefing

 Participants are informed of the true nature of the study after the research has taken place  The aim of debriefing is to restore the participant to the state she was in at the start of the experiment

Ethics assignment

 Assess how ethical your experiment was. Give the study a score from 1 (very unethical) to 10 (very ethical)