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)