04 Oct. 2016. Research Ethics in Psychology

            

    Ethics are an important aspect when looking into psychological research. Psychologists must follow an ethical code, which is defined as "a system of principles governing morality and acceptable conduct." (thefreedictionary.com). The American Psychological Association created the "Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct" for researchers to use and follow in order to conduct research for their experiments. There are numerous rules and procedures that all psychologists must follow in order to create safe environments for participants for moral and legal reasons.


     In order to start a research study, the psychologists must first bring a proposal of their experiment to an Institutional Review Board for approval of ethical standards.The IRB is made up of various ethical committees that review the proposals and determine if the benefit of the research outweighs any risks that can happen to participants. Without approval from a certified ethics board, research can't be started. "These committees may request researchers make changes to the study's design or procedure, or in extreme cases deny approval of the study altogether." (Mcleod).  Once the proposal gets approved, they can perform their study while complying to all of the APA's ethical code of conduct.

     There are many points that psychologists must follow during there experiment, but here are some of the most common ethical guidelines that I will provide. Every participant must give an informed consent of knowledge about the study that the researcher provides. The potential participants are given information regarding:
"1. Purpose of the research
2. Expected duration of the study
4. Right to decline or withdraw from the study at any time
3. Procedures of the study
5. Potential risks or effects
6. Research benefits
7. Confidentiality agreements
8. Incentives of participation
9. Opportunity for potential participants to ask questions and receive answers about the experiment"
(American Psychological Association)
Deception is also an ethical issue, because morally it is usually wrong to mislead or misinform participants in a study in order to achieve results. Sometimes deception must be used during a study. Researchers must use deception in the study if there is no other way of conducting the experiment. The study should have the least amount of deception as possible and should not harm the participant when they learn of the deception after the study. Even though some researchers use deception, other psychologist disagree with it and deem it unethical to use deception for any reason. After a study has been completed, all participants must be debriefed. During the debriefing, researchers explain the study, the results, and if there was any deception used to the participants. They use debriefing to  make sure that the participants are psychologically and physically healthy after the study has been completed. (Mcleod). Researchers also should post their findings and analysis of the study that took place. It would be unethical to lie about any part of the study from beginning to end and would also be considered unethical to withhold any information about the study. The researcher should give the information to the public and other psychologists for review or for other researchers to duplicate the study in order to prove the validity of the results. (A.P.A.)

     Ethical Psychology should be practiced by all psychological researchers in order to ensure the safety of all participants. If a study is conducted in an ethical manor, then all participants should have no long-term mental or physical ailments, their human rights should not be violated, and the laws that all must abide should remain unbroken. A study that is ethical protects the researchers reputation and allows the researcher's study to be accepted in the psychology community.


References:

American Psychological Association. "Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct.
     " PsycEXTRA Dataset (2010): 1-15.Http://www.apa.org/ethics/code/. APA, 
      01 June 2010. Web. 04 Oct. 2016.

"ethical code." WordNet 3.0, Farlex clipart collection. 2003-2008. Princeton University, Clipart.com, Farlex 
      Inc. 4 Oct. 2016http://www.thefreedictionary.com/ethical+code

McLeod, Saul. "Psychology Research Ethics." Simply Psychology. Creative Commons, 01 Jan.
     1970. Web. 04 Oct. 2016.