Ethics

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What are ethics?

A set of moral ethics

Assessment of risks and benefits

The principal of beneficence: The need to maximise benefits and minimise an potential harmful effects of participation.

Potential risks:

psychological harm

psychical harm

loss of confidentiality

Benefits:

Educational benefit

Acquiring a new skill

Treatment os psychological/ medical condition

Material benefits: money, gifts, entry into price draw

before research you have to do a risk benefit analysis

Informed Consent

Participants are treated autonomous

They are capable of making deliberate decisions about whether to participate in research

ALL potential participants in a research project should be provided with all information that might influence their decision of whether to participate

Information provided to participants should include

the purpose of the study

The risk and benefits of participants

their rights to refuse or terminate participation in the study

Autonomy issues that can arise:

when participants last the ability to be able to make

an informed decision of whether to participate in the study (these include):

minors

patients- psychologically not able to make their own decision

Adults with cognitive impairments

Information issues that could arise are

providing your participants with too

much information that can make the results of the study invalid

Researchers can withhold the hypothesis of the study or a particular condition so it does not affect the results

note: not all research requires informs consent and at time informed consent may not possible

Deception

Deception occurs because of the misrepresentation of information

LOOK AT NOTES IN BOOK ON DECEPTION

The importance of debriefing

This happens when the study is complete

the following can be addressed during the debriefing stage of the study:

deception

withholding information

potential harmful effects

this stage, the researcher explains the purpose of the study and what the anticipated results

Alternatives to deception

Role playing:

Simulation studies:

honest experiments:

Make participants entirely aware of the research purpose

make them aware that someone is trying to change their behaviour

field experiments

naturally occurring events

Justice and Fairness in selection