This document discusses ethical issues in psychological research and guidelines for addressing them. It outlines that researchers must follow ethical guidelines to protect participants from harm. The key ethical issues covered are deception of participants, lack of informed consent, and lack of protection of participants. The document then describes several approaches researchers can take to address these issues, such as debriefing participants, obtaining retrospective or presumptive consent, ensuring confidentiality of data, and allowing participants to withdraw from studies.

1. The only way is ethics!
ETHICS
Ethical issues and how to deal
with them…

2. Why are ethical issues
important?
• All psychological research takes place
according to the BPS ethical guidelines
These are a set of rules that
psychologists must stick to to make sure
that their ethical
(they make sure that participants are
treated properly)

3. What are the important ones to
know?
Deception
Informed consent (lack of)
Protection of participants (lack of)

4. Deception
• Participants should not be lead into
believing something that is false (usually
researchers deceive participants about
the true aim of the research)
Why deceive? – Often it’s to avoid
demand characteristics

5. Deception – dealing with it
Debriefing
Revealing the true nature of the research
once the participant has taken part – give
the participant the option to withdraw
their data

6. Deception – dealing with it
Retrospective consent
This is where the participant gives
consent for their data to be used in the
research once they’ve taken part and have
been debriefed (know the true nature of
the research)

7. Deception – dealing with it
Prior general consent
What I did with you!!
Asking participants to give consent for all
potential research, once you have this
they have technically given consent to be
participants in any psychological research

8. Informed consent (lack of)
• Participants should give fully informed
(they should know the real aim etc… of
the research) consent before the
research takes place
**This isn’t possible where deception is
used

9. Informed consent – dealing with a lack of
it
Confidentiality
Ensuring that participants are not able to
be identified

10. Informed consent – dealing with a lack of
it
Presumptive consent
Asking a group that are representative of
your participants, telling them the entire
truth about the research and asking if
they’d consent to taking part – if they do
you can presume that your participants
would also

11. Informed consent – dealing with a lack of
it
Right to withdraw
Ensuring that participants are informed
(and reminded) about their right to
withdraw themselves and/or their data
from the research at any time

12. Protection of participants (lack of)
• According to the guidelines participants
should not be at any risk (emotionally,
physically or psychologically) during the
research more than they would be
during normal everyday life

13. Protection of participants – dealing with a
lack of it
Confidentiality
Ensuring that participants are not able to
be identified
- Use initials (e.g. KF)
- Assign numbers (e.g. Participant 32)

14. Protection of participants – dealing with a
lack of it
Terminate the experiment
Stop the experiment and data collection
once harm is clear

15. Protection of participants – dealing with a
lack of it
Debrief
Presumptive consent
Retrospective consent
Right to withdraw
Aftercare (check up, counselling etc)

16. Confidentiality
• Participants and their results should not
be able to be identified by anyone other
than the researchers, participants
should not be identifiable in write-ups

17. Confidentiality – dealing with it
Use participant initials
If ever mentioning one participant
individually they should only be referred
to by their initials

18. Confidentiality – dealing with it
Pseudonym
If ever mentioning one participant
individually they should be referred to
using a fake name

19. Confidentiality – dealing with it
Numbers
Assign each participant a number and if
identifying one individually refer to them
as ‘Participant number __ ‘