Ethics
Psych ethics
Research ethics
Moral principles to guide
Psych: guide psych conduct and behavior
Research: guiding research through all processes
Ethical dilemma
Conflict between different moral conducts, psychologists can have different positions on an issue
Ethical codes
APA: American Psychological Association
BPS: British Psychological Society
Hungary too
Ethical codes
Principles not rules
Keeps it pr fessional
General public trusts it
Sanctions for violations
Principles based on APA and BSP
- max benefit min harm
- Respect people’s rights; autonomy, dignity
- scientific value, no waste of recourse
- social responsibility, beneficial for society
- responsibility for actions
- Integrity, accuracy, honesty, trustfulness
- justice, equal access to benefits
Informed consent
Agreement with full knowledge of research and methods
Duration, warnings, etc
Example: max benefit min harm
Zimbardo, Stanford prison experiment
E.g: Respect for people’s integrity
Humphreys
E.g: social value and responsibility
Sir Cyril Burt and his inconsistent fraud data
Confidentiality and anonymity
Anonymity: participants identity
Confidentiality: participants results/ data
Psych practice: confidential and anonymous
Psych research: not confidential but anonymous
Initiatives
Large money in exchange of participation-> avoid.
Limit payment, (travel or SMT or hourly rate)
Deception
Hide true purpose of experiment or give incorrect info -> avoid.
Needs to be debriefed asap
Debriefing
Mutual discussion to correct misconception
Negative effects should be reversed
Provide therapy/treatment if needed
Informed consent in interventions
- Experimental nature of treatment should be explained
- services which aren’t available for participants should be disclosed and made clear
- Method of assignment explained, control conditions too
- financial aspects discussed
E.g.: treatments
Tuskegee experiment
Treatment for control group were withheld
Ethics in publication
- Data fabrication is bad
- withholding data is bad
- plagiarism is bad
- Conflict of interest (e.g getting finances from alcohol [biased])
Rosenhan experiment
Pseudo patients; diagnosed with schizophrenia due to report
-didn’t brief participants properly
-participant just wanted psychiatric care
Diederik Stapels research misconduct
-studies on priming
- never conducted research, data and hypothesis was made up
Darley
Bystander effect
