Does Ethics Affect In Psychological Research?

In the context of research, ethics is defined as the systems of moral principles that guide human action (1). Ethics is the reflection of the societies ideals of what is right and wrong. It is required in order for research to be valid and published for an ethics committee to evaluate the proposed research question, design and implementations and provide approval in order for a research project to be considered ethical.

Ethical guidelines are the frameworks and standards that govern psychologists in conducting a morally justified research to respect the rights of the participants. Since the researchers are responsible for the welfare of the participants, it is vital for them to act in accordance with a specific strict code of ethics and moral principles. One of the common ethical framework used in many psychological studies is IVCARD where ‘I’ stands for Informed Consent, ‘V’ equals Voluntary Participation, ‘C’ is Confidentiality, ‘A’ being Accurate Reporting, ‘R’ is Right To Withdraw and ‘D’ as Do No Harm. Although there are few disadvantages of these strict ethical guidelines, the advantages outweigh them. This is evident from two of the

To ensure that a researcher’s enthusiasm for knowledge and understanding doesn’t let them get carried away, clear guidelines for ethical behaviour in research, a Code of Ethics, have been established by governments, institutions and various professional societies such as the American Psychological Association(APA), the British Psychological Society (BPS) and the Psychological Society of Ireland (PSI).

According to Simply Psychology, ethics in psychology means how there are rules of conducts to follow when going through with a research. The researchers have moral responsibilities to ensure that the participants not harmed whatsoever. Participants rights must not be violated for the sake of the research. Psychologist must remember that they have to protect any participants from harm.

Informed consent most closely interrelates to the guideline of deception. Deception is possibly the most controversial and also the most important aspects of research in psychology. Deception occurs when the experimenter withholds information about the study or the true aim of the study. In psychological research, it is important to use the least amount of deception possible. In all cases the researcher must take careful consideration to the benefits of any deception. If deception is carried out the participant is likely to experience: a feeling of being uncomfortable, negative feelings towards the research, and suspicion of the research. However, sometimes deception is necessary for the researcher because if the participants understand the aim of the study they could act differently according to the aim of the study. For instance, in memory research the researcher can inform the aim of the study because the participants do not know what they will be asked to remember.

As mentioned before, researcher have to accurately report results. In addition, the concept of plagiarism is a critical factor in psychological research. Everything has to be given proper citation, from quotes to tables used.

The three main ethical issues in psychology using human participants are: Privacy, physical and psychological harm and deception.

Deception is considered to be defined as the action of deceiving someone, intentionally misleading a person or participants about their status, giving false information about the investigation or the research purpose and omitting information about the real purpose of the research. Usually when people think of the word deception it leads to more of a moral and ethics standpoint depending on how one may view it. Moral issues merely show a simple, even if it is just a right or wrong answer. It is often a matter of judgement whether the research is justified or not. Ethics refers to the correct rules of conduct necessary when carrying out research. Psychologist have a moral responsibility to protect research participants from harm. Deception has been attacked repeatedly as ethically unacceptable and morally reprehensible. According to the American Psychological Association psychologist do not conduct a study involving deception unless they have determined that the use of deceptive techniques is justified by study's significat prospective scientific, educational, or applied value and the effective non-deceptive alternative procedures are not feasible, and they do not deceive prospective participants about research that is reasonably expected to cause physical pain or severe emotional distress. The perception of deception seems to be very low in studies that investigate public behaviors and enhanced in studies that run the risk of harming research participants or in studies that investigate private behaviors.

In chapter two, we study the research methods of different psychological experiments and studies. This includes “the ethical obligations of researchers toward” the participants in their research, which are enforced by institutional review boards at American research colleges and universities. In these studies, researchers are required to provide the following: (a) informed consent “of the purpose of the research, its expected duration, and any potential risks, discomfort, or adverse associated with it”; (b) protection for harm and discomfort; (c) knowledge of deception in a study and debriefing once the study has concluded. These obligations are required to protect research participants. However, these are not always followed in research.

Psychological research has been growing and developing new ways of studying human behavior, collecting knowledge and expanding our understanding of our nature. For instance, studies involving human subjects presented risks for violation of ethical research guidelines, by pushing the limits of human experience (Kim, 2012). Throughout history, there have been numerous studies that elevated this concern, such as the Milgram Experiment of 1963. One of the major ethical raised was that it lacked informed consent from the participants and eventually raised the issue of protecting human subjects. This paper examines the ethical compliance in psychological research and emphasizes the importance of ethics and professionalism by analyzing different

Throughout history, deception has been used by people all the time. People have used it to get what they want or to get away with something they know was wrong. Deception has also been utilized in psychology, particularly social psychology experiments. In today’s society, more people have gradually had a problem with the usage of deception in psychological experiments, while others believe that it is an invaluable component of an experiment. These two distinct perspectives on the issue have developed overtime and has created a serious debate. Even though there are different arguments to the issue, the fact is that deception has

After reading the assigned articles, I consider that the biggest threat to the integrity of studies in psychology

Our country was founded on certain moral principles. The moral principles which guide our lives are referred to as ethics. These ethics have an impact on how we interact with the world around us and shape our personalities; this happens even if we do not realize their immediate impact. It is for this very reason that ethics in psychological research became necessary. “One may also define ethics as a method, procedure, or perspective for deciding how to act and for analyzing complex problems and issues” (Resnik, 2011). We are expected to behave or be treated a particular way in society, therefore we should be granted certain ethical treatments in regards to research.

A false explanation of the nature, purpose and goals of the study will be explained to participants in order avoid skewed results. If participants know the intent of the study is to assess deception, they might have a heightened awareness of their deceptive behavior, which might affect their survey responses. Informed consent will be mandatory before acceptance into the study and a research team member will explain that participation is voluntary and withdrawal from the study is allowed at any time. Participants will also be reassured that survey responses will remain confidential and will be given $15 compensation for each survey they complete. Data will be collected by research team members who will administer the surveys in person to the participants.

In this case, the psychologist is presented with several ethical issues which could cause harm to the client. The first ethical issue that arose in this case is the potential for a role conflict. The psychologist and Mr. Hartwig had contact prior to the development of a therapeutic relationship when the psychologist bought a car from Mr. Hartwig. It may not be enough that the brief, informal relationship ended. The psychologist must assess the dimensions of the previous relationship from the viewpoint of the client as well as his/her own personal feelings (Koocher & Keith-Spiegel, 2008). For example, the client could feel that he gave the psychologist a good deal and that the psychologist was indebted to him. This could leave the