11), making the reading of the standard prone to ambiguous and possibly exploitive interpretations. A third type of ethical standards seem relatively blurred and borderline arbitrary, presenting a unique obstacle in defining what is truly a breach of ethical norms – like the standard protecting prospective participants from deception, except in the cases where “… they have determined that the use of deceptive techniques is justified by the study’s significant prospective scientific, educational, or applied value and that effective nondeceptive alternative procedures are not feasible.” (p. Some others are not necessarily parallel to existing laws, but are similarly straightforward and clearly well-grounded – such as the need to debrief participants of the purpose of the study after their participation has ended or ensuring their right to withdraw from the investigation at any given moment. (APA, 2010) They often overlap with laws – some examples from the comprehensive list of APA’s ethical standards include protection against harassment, discrimination and harm, ensuring the confidentiality of the person and extracting their informed and voluntary consent, to name a few. Often these mandatory prescriptions are called Ethical Standards and exist to ensure the safety and continuous well-being of the participants. When we select a design including other people we are obliged to follow a set of enforceable rules of conduct – either those of our university’s ethics board or, later in our careers, those of the psychological association we belong to and the institution we are affiliated with. In the research we carry out as psychologists we may often recruit other human beings as Ss (study participants/subjects) and thus open the sensitive topic of human research ethics. Psychological research however remains prone to controversial experimental designs and techniques because of the nature of the questions it deals with. Today volumes such as these, along with many other influential publications by national and international psychological prescriptive and regulatory bodies guide and dictate the proper ways of conducting research and practicing the varied aspects of the psychological profession in regards to ethics. It appears we have come a long way since the days of such illuminating but rightfully controversial scientific endeavors, with the Australian branch of the British Psychological Society publishing their first Code of Ethics in 1949 after the Nuremberg trials (Allan & Love, 2010) or the American Psychological Association’s (APA) first Code of Ethics appearing back in 1953 and evolving ever since. It is likely that some of the most memorable experiments that we will read about during our undergraduate studies – for instance Stanley Milgram’s renowned “Behavioral Study of Obedience” – would be presented as revealing examples of ethical misconduct. Through the undergraduate curriculum in psychology we get acquainted with the basic nature of research ethics fairly early, often as part of PSY 101: Introduction to psychology or a similar class. But what lies beyond the legislations in ethics? Where should a researcher’s moral compass be pointing to? Here are the outlines proposed by the APA and some general discussion relating to them. What is necessarily taken into consideration in regards to ethics before conducting research is studied and then read again and again in guidelines and codes of conduct. Ethics are a vast, key topic in psychological research.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |