What are ethical issues in psychological research?

professional psychological organisations lay down guidelines and rules that need to be followed in order to avoid harming our participants in any way. this moral guidelines ensure that all experiments are conducted in a safe and controlled way to protect everyone involved.

some examples of ethical guidelines are:

Debriefing: this involves informing the participants what the research consisted of at the end of the experiment. The experimenter must also ensure that no harm was inflicted on the participants and that they leave in the same condition they arrived in. This is crucial if any deception took place at any point in the experiment.

Informed consent: this entails all participants to give their consent after knowing the study in full. However in some studies this may not be possible as a method of deception is used.

Confidentiality: all identities of participants must remain confidential according to the Data Protection Act.

Right to Withdraw: particiapnts should be clear in the knowledge that they have a right to withdraw from the experiment at any time, or to withdraw their results at the end during debreifing.