Outline research into the social and developmental area and discuss the ethical considerations.

An example of social research is Milgram's obedience study which investigated how far a person would obey instructions when it involved harming another individual. Participants were classified as the 'teacher' and were told to apply electric shocks to a confederate 'learner' when the learner answered incorrectly, but the teachers were unaware that the shocks were not real. An ethical advantage of this research was that Milgram gained the consent of the participants prior to the experiment due to it being in a laboratory setting. Likewise participants were provided with the knowledge that they had a right to withdraw from the study at any time if they felt uncomfortable, and were not forced to continue with the study. However, an ethical disadvantage of this research was that Milgram deceived the participants into believing they had shocked a real person in order to gain a more accurate insight into obedience. A follow up after the experiment revealed that many of the participants experienced psychological trauma from the deception.
Moreover, an example of developmental research is Bandura's Bobo doll experiment. Children observed adults being either aggressive or passive when playing with a blow up doll and were then left to play with the doll themselves (while secretly being filmed) to see whether they would copy the aggressive behaviour. An ethical advantage of this research was that the identity of the children who participated remained confidential and any videos released of the children were consented by the parent prior to release. An ethical disadvantage of this research was that the children were not given a debrief upon completion of the study to explain that the aggressive adults had just been pretending. This means that the children may have internalized the aggressive behaviour of the adults as normal and may continue this behaviour during play.