Ethics

1. Ethics

2. APA Standard for Participant Treatment Planning: Participating in an experiment takes time. It is considered unethical to waste participants� time by having them participate in a faulty experiment. ? Before conducting an experiment, a researcher has an ethical obligation to make sure that, to the best of his or her ability, the study is of good quality

3. APA Standard for Participant Treatment Responsibility: Each researcher is responsible for ensuring that those working on his or her study are behaving ethical in their work on that study

4. APA Standard for Participant Treatment Compliance: Studies should comply with federal, state, and local guidelines For instance, if a study asks participants to report child abuse, are their federal, state, local guidelines that require people who discover such abuse to report it to authorities?

5. APA Standard for Participant Treatment Approval: Each study must be reviewed, and approved, by an Internal Review Board affiliated with the institution where the study is conducted These review boards assess whether: Treatment of participants is in accordance with guidelines Whether potential harm to participants is too great If participants are dissatisfied with their treatment in a study, they can complain to these review boards E.g., promised payment not delivered Conducting research is a privilege, not a right. Researchers who continuously go against ethical standards may no longer be allowed to conduct research

6. APA Standards for Participant Treatment Responsibilities: Researchers must clearly delineate what participants can expect from them, as well as what they expect from participant

7. APA Standards for Participant Treatment Informed consent: Participants must be told: The nature of the research That their participation is voluntary About the presence of any factor that could make them feel uncomfortable, or any factor that could be a risk to them from participating If naturalistic observation is used (i.e., participants� normal behavior with no intervention is examined � and that behavior takes place in an arena that they could assume to be public), informed consent is not necessary

8. APA Standards for Participant Treatment Inducements: Although participants may be reimbursed for their time and trouble, these reimbursements cannot be so excessive that they could be seen as coercion to participate If research is conducted in a class, participating in the study cannot be the only means of gaining a particular inducement Other means of gaining an inducement should be of approximately equal difficulty/hardship to participating in the experiment/study

9. APA Standards for Participant Treatment Deception: If at all possible, deception should be avoiding. If this is not possible, participants should not be deceived concerning any potential risks or hardships involved with participation in the experiment Participants should be fully debriefed at the end of a study and told about any deception and why it was necessary

10. APA Standards for Participant Treatment Data: Participants should be told whether their data will be anonymous or confidential Difference? If participants� data will be presented individually, this should be made clear to participants Participants should have the option of having the researcher not include their data in any paper or presentation from the study

11. APA Standards for Participant Treatment Information: Participants should be told, or have the option of easily finding out, about the nature and results of the study.

12. APA Standards for working with animals Compliance: Treatment of animals should comply with federal, state, and local regulations Supervision: The primary researcher should supervise assistants closely enough to ensure that everyone under their supervision is in compliance with ethical guidelines and standards

13. APA standards for treatment of animals Instructions: The primary researcher should ensure that those under their supervision are adequately trained in how to work with the animals in the study Pain: Potential pain to animals in the study should be kept to a minimum. If at all possible, alternative procedures should be used to minimize pain

14. APA standards for treatment of animals Euthanasia: Animals should only be killed if absolutely necessary to the research project. When this is necessary, they should be killed as quickly and painlessly as possible

15. Is it ethical? Study in which dating partners are made to feel accepted/rejected based on whether partner writes about what�s in the room/problems in the relationship

16. Is it ethical? In order to recruit participants, a professor offers students extra credit for participating. What if students who don�t participate can get the same amount of extra credit by writing a paper?

17. Is it ethical? In order to examine the idea of repressed memory, a researcher tests whether she can create a false memory of having been abused in participants Instead, this researcher examines whether she can create a false memory of a potentially traumatic event, such as having been lost in a shopping mall

18. Is it ethical? A researcher is investigating the effects of a medication on depression. She randomly assigns participants to receive either the drug or a placebo What if she randomly assigns participants to receive either the drug in question, or another drug, known to be somewhat effective in treating depression?

19. Is it ethical? A researcher is studying children�s tv viewing and home-life. In the course of interviewing a participant, she begins to suspect child abuse. What should she do? A researcher is studying early marriage. While interviewing a pregnant wife, she discovers that this participant is smoking and drinking. What should she do?

20. Is it ethical? While interviewing newlyweds, a researcher discovers that she knows the husband in a couple and knows that, in the past, he has cheated people out of money and stolen from them. Should she tell the wife?

21. Is it ethical? Find friends to form a group and discuss ethics questions completed last night