What an ethical issue is

1. An ethical issue is a way a study could harm or wrong the people who take part in it.
2. Three of them come up again and again: lack of informed consent, protection of participants from psychological harm, and deception.
3. In the UK the British Psychological Society (BPS) writes the code of conduct that psychologists work to.

Lack of informed consent

1. Lack of informed consent means the participant never agreed to what actually happened to them.
2. Proper consent means being told the aim, the task, how long it takes and any risk, and then agreeing freely.
3. Consent is lacking when nobody was asked, or when so little was explained that the choice was not a real one.
4. Anyone under 16 needs consent from a parent or guardian as well as their own agreement.
5. Covert observations and studies in public places raise this issue most often, because the people watched were never approached at all.
6. The cost to the participant is losing control over what happens to them and over the data held about them.

Protection of participants from psychological harm

1. Psychological harm means the study puts someone at risk of being hurt in a way that leaves no physical mark.
2. Harm covers stress, embarrassment, fear, guilt and a knock to self-esteem, as well as physical injury.
3. The BPS test is that the risk should be no greater than one a participant would meet in ordinary daily life.
4. Participants should leave in no worse a state than when they arrived.
5. Because psychological harm leaves no mark, the risk of distress is judged from the task itself before the study runs.
6. Asking pupils to write about a time they were left out of a group could distress someone who is being excluded at that moment.

Deception

1. Deception means the participant is misled about the aim or the task.
2. It covers a straight untruth, such as calling a conformity study a maths test, and it covers leaving out information the person would need in order to consent.
3. Deception blocks informed consent, because a person cannot agree to something they were never told about.
4. Mild deception is sometimes allowed where the study could not work any other way, and the researcher has to justify it in advance.
5. A larger deception needs a stronger case for running the study and a fuller debrief afterwards.
6. The cost is that participants may leave feeling foolish, or lose trust in psychologists in general.

Judging how serious an issue is

1. How serious an issue is depends on the level of risk, on who the participants are and on what the findings are worth.
2. Some groups need extra care, including children, people with a mental health diagnosis and anyone who may feel unable to say no.
3. Risk rises when a participant cannot easily refuse, such as a class asked to take part by their own teacher.

Strengths and weaknesses of ethical guidelines

1. Ethical guidelines protect participants and keep public trust in psychology.
2. They rule out studies that would answer real questions, such as the effects of severe neglect on a child.
3. They are guidance rather than law, so they depend on researchers and review committees applying them honestly.
4. Removing an ethical issue can cost a study validity, because telling participants the full aim in advance makes demand characteristics far more likely.
5. An older study that would now be refused permission cannot be run again, so its reliability can never be checked.

Withdrawal, confidentiality and debriefing

1. The right to withdraw is a remedy, and participants are told at the start that they may stop at any point and have their data taken out.
2. Confidentiality is a remedy in which names and personal details are kept private, so no result can be traced back to an individual.
3. Debriefing is a remedy in which participants are told the real aim after the study and checked to see that they leave in no worse a state.
4. A remedy is something the researcher provides, and it reduces the harm the issue would otherwise cause.

Turning this into marks

1. When an issue and its effect are both asked for, keep them as two separate points, one naming the issue and one saying what it does to the people in the study.
2. Name the issue as lack of informed consent, psychological harm or deception, because "it was unethical" does not secure the knowledge mark.
3. Quote the part of the procedure that causes the problem, such as filming shoppers who were never approached.
4. The mark most often lost is offering the right to withdraw as an issue, when it is a remedy the researcher provides.