Which is the ethical issues which one should keep in mind while using deception in a study of psychology?

Earlier in psychology history, many experiments were performed with highly questionable and even outrageous violations of ethical considerations. Milgram's infamous obedience experiment, for example, involved deceiving human subjects into believing that they were delivering painful, possibly even life-threatening, electrical shocks to another person.

These controversial psychology experiments played a major role in the development of the ethical guidelines and regulations that psychologists must abide by today. When performing studies or experiments that involve human participants, psychologists must submit their proposal to an institutional review board (IRB) for approval. ​These committees help ensure that experiments conform to ethical and legal guidelines.

Ethical codes, such as those established by the American Psychological Association, are designed to protect the safety and best interests of those who participate in psychological research. Such guidelines also protect the reputations of psychologists, the field of psychology itself and the institutions that sponsor psychology research.

Ethical Guidelines for Research With Human Subjects

When determining ethical guidelines for research, most experts agree that the cost of conducting the experiment must be weighed against the potential benefit to society the research may provide. While there is still a great deal of debate about ethical guidelines, there are some key components that should be followed when conducting any type of research with human subjects.

Participation Must Be Voluntary

All ethical research must be conducted using willing participants. Study volunteers should not feel coerced, threatened or bribed into participation. This becomes especially important for researchers working at universities or prisons, where students and inmates are often encouraged to participate in experiments.

Researchers Must Obtain Informed Consent

Informed consent is a procedure in which all study participants are told about procedures and informed of any potential risks. Consent should be documented in written form. Informed consent ensures that participants know enough about the experiment to make an informed decision about whether or not they want to participate.

Obviously, this can present problems in cases where telling the participants the necessary details about the experiment might unduly influence their responses or behaviors in the study. The use of deception in psychology research is allowed in certain instances, but only if the study would be impossible to conduct without the use of deception, if the research will provide some sort of valuable insight and if the subjects will be debriefed and informed about the study's true purpose after the data has been collected.

Researchers Must Maintain Participant Confidentiality

Confidentiality is an essential part of any ethical psychology research. Participants need to be guaranteed that identifying information and individual responses will not be shared with anyone who is not involved in the study.

While these guidelines provide some ethical standards for research, each study is different and may present unique challenges. Because of this, most colleges and universities have a Human Subjects Committee or Institutional Review Board that oversees and grants approval for any research conducted by faculty members or students. These committees provide an important safeguard to ensure academic research is ethical and does not pose a risk to study participants.

Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.

By Kendra Cherry
Kendra Cherry, MS, is an author and educational consultant focused on helping students learn about psychology.

Thanks for your feedback!

Ethical Issues in Psychology

In Psychology some of the most contested issues are ethical issues. Many of the greatest psychological studies have been hugely unethical. For example, Milgram (1963), Zimbardo (1973). One of the problems one encounters when conducting psychological research is considering the extent to which the research depends upon being unethical.  Milgram’s infamous study conducted to the highest ethical peaks would not have provided such an insight of human obedience because it would have become completely ecologically invalid — in real life we cannot simply withdraw from the research. Furthermore, demand characteristics would have undoubtably had a confounding effect upon the results.

The British Psychological Society (BPS) and the American Psychological Association (APA) have provided an ethical framework for psychologists to attempt to adhere to when conducting psychological research.

If you are taking an a-level psychology exam, or conducting psychological research, it is important to know these ethical principles.

Protection From Harm

Perhaps the most important ethical principle is that participants should be protected from harm, psychological or otherwise.

Psychological harm can be difficult to operationalise because it can depend upon the person and it can be difficult to detect, both the participants and the researchers may not know that participants have been harmed psychologically. However, that being said, researchers can do their upmost to prevent any undue stress for their participants.

Right to Withdraw

Giving participants the right to withdraw does not just informing them that they can leave the study at any time, but also informing them that they have the right to withdraw their results from the study at any time.

This is important because some participants may feel pressured into continuing with the study. It is also important because it prevents the participants from feeling embarrassed about their results. Take for example a study in which a person has to take an IQ test, that returns the result that they have below average intelligence. This could be embarrassing for the participants and may lead them to want to withdraw.

Confidentiality

Following on from the previous point. Ensuring that your results are anonymous and also confidential follows the ethical code put forth by the British Psychological Society.

No one outside of the experiment—and ideally in the experiment too—should be able to identify the participants from the results.

Informed Consent

For any research to be ethical, the researcher must have gained informed consent from the participants. The ‘informed’ part of this ethical principle is the most important part. It is no use to gain consent from participants when they are not informed about the true nature of the study.

Take for example Milgram’s 1963 study. The participants were told that they would be participating in research on memory and learning, and they consented to take part based on that knowledge. Milgram therefore did not gain informed consent because the participants were not fully informed about the true nature of the study, that is, it was a study into obedience. However, arguably informed consent was gained after the participants were debriefed, which brings us on to the next point.

Debriefing

Debriefing is conducted with the participants after the study has taken place. It has a number of aims. Firstly, it aims to ensure that none of the participants have been harmed in any way by the study. Secondly, it aims to make sure that the researchers have informed consent. Thirdly, it allows the participants an opportunity to remove their results from the study. Finally, it allows the participants to ask any questions about the study to make sure they fully understand the content of it.

There are a number of times when debriefing the participants of a study is not possible. To give an example, Piliavin et al., which was a field experiment. The participants of that study could not be debriefed because they did not know that they were taking part and it would have been nearly impossible to complete.

Deception

Some studies require that the participants are deceived in some way. The majority of the time this is to prevent demand characteristics, which can confound upon the results and conclusions of the study.

Deception however, is against the ethical standards set by the British Psychological Association. Deception includes: misleading the participants in any way and the use of stooges or confederates.

Further Reading

OCR A2 Psychology Student Unit Guide: Unit G544 Approaches and Research Methods in Psychology: Guide to Approaches and Research Methods in Psychology (Student Unit Guides)

Summary

Article Name

Ethical Issues in Psychology

Description

In Psychology some of the most contested issues are ethical issues. Many of the greatest psychological studies have been hugely unethical.

Author

What are the ethical issues of deception in psychological research?

What are the main ethical issues in psychology?

Why is deception an issue for psychologists?

What is required for deception to be an ethical research practice?