13/10/25
Ethics
Research Methods
Main Points:
● Ethics in psychology dictates how psychologists should interact with clients, participants and society
using certain principles and standards. This occurs in both applied psychology and research.
● Other examples of research ethical codes include the Nuremberg Code (1948) and the World
Medical Associations’ Declarations of Helsinki (1964 - 2024) and the 1979 Belmont Report
● The Nuremberg code consists of 10 principles for ethically experimenting with human participants
(stemming from the war crimes committed during WW2)
● The Belmont Report highlights autonomy/informed consent, maximising benefits and minimising
harm and fair distribution of burdens/benefits
What could happen when things go wrong?
● For example, the Tuskegee Syphilis study.
● The Tuskegee Syphyllis study lasted from 1936 to 1972 which used 600 low income African
American men to test the development of syphilis before treatment even existed, when treatment
was created it wasn’t administered to the participants.
● Another Unethical study -> Asian women were given chapatis with low levels of radiation and iron in
order to study the absorption of iron and anaemia, clearly there are issues with informed consent
since the women didn’t give informed consent for their food to be contaminated
Ethical Principles for psychologists:
● to be applied from the inception of research to the publication of results, main principles include
respect/competence/responsibility/integrity (BPS Code of Human Research Ethics)
Protection from harm:
● for participants, researchers and institutions
● Protection from harm -> for participants this would include physical, psychological or emotional
discomfort, for researchers this would include physical (safety) or emotional (listening to harrowing
experience) and from an institutional level this would include legal damages (e.g. suing for unethical
research) or damage to its reputation (e.g. negative publicity)
Informed consent:
● needs PROPER consent and for participants to know what is being asked of them, they should
have the right to withdraw participation and data and a debriefing should be considered to highlight
the aims of the study
● Informed consent -> participants are free to voluntarily take part free from coercion or undue
influence, for this to be informed consent the participants must have a good idea of what they are
being asked to do and why
Deception:
● omission/passive deception e.g. not making participants aware of certain conditions,
commission/active deception where participants are deceived
Ethics
Research Methods
Main Points:
● Ethics in psychology dictates how psychologists should interact with clients, participants and society
using certain principles and standards. This occurs in both applied psychology and research.
● Other examples of research ethical codes include the Nuremberg Code (1948) and the World
Medical Associations’ Declarations of Helsinki (1964 - 2024) and the 1979 Belmont Report
● The Nuremberg code consists of 10 principles for ethically experimenting with human participants
(stemming from the war crimes committed during WW2)
● The Belmont Report highlights autonomy/informed consent, maximising benefits and minimising
harm and fair distribution of burdens/benefits
What could happen when things go wrong?
● For example, the Tuskegee Syphilis study.
● The Tuskegee Syphyllis study lasted from 1936 to 1972 which used 600 low income African
American men to test the development of syphilis before treatment even existed, when treatment
was created it wasn’t administered to the participants.
● Another Unethical study -> Asian women were given chapatis with low levels of radiation and iron in
order to study the absorption of iron and anaemia, clearly there are issues with informed consent
since the women didn’t give informed consent for their food to be contaminated
Ethical Principles for psychologists:
● to be applied from the inception of research to the publication of results, main principles include
respect/competence/responsibility/integrity (BPS Code of Human Research Ethics)
Protection from harm:
● for participants, researchers and institutions
● Protection from harm -> for participants this would include physical, psychological or emotional
discomfort, for researchers this would include physical (safety) or emotional (listening to harrowing
experience) and from an institutional level this would include legal damages (e.g. suing for unethical
research) or damage to its reputation (e.g. negative publicity)
Informed consent:
● needs PROPER consent and for participants to know what is being asked of them, they should
have the right to withdraw participation and data and a debriefing should be considered to highlight
the aims of the study
● Informed consent -> participants are free to voluntarily take part free from coercion or undue
influence, for this to be informed consent the participants must have a good idea of what they are
being asked to do and why
Deception:
● omission/passive deception e.g. not making participants aware of certain conditions,
commission/active deception where participants are deceived
