Research Ethics & Guidelines in Psychology

• Ethical guidelines and practices for psychological research involves applying ethics to research.
• It is crucial to understand ethical responsibilities when working with human participants and animals during research.

Ethics and Research

• Ethics refers to a set of conduct rules necessary when carrying out research.
• In Australia, researchers must submit detailed plans of their proposals to the Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) to protect the well-being of study participants.
• The Australian Psychological Society (APS) publishes a Code of Ethics for psychologists.
• The APS Code of Ethics and the HREC are important for the ethical and responsible conduct of psychological research in Australia.
• The APS Code of Ethics articulates and promotes ethical principles and establishes specific standards to guide psychologists and the public, in order to maintain clear understanding and expectations for ethical professional conduct by psychologists.

APS Ethical Guidelines

• Protection from harm: safeguarding participants from physical and psychological harm.
• Informed consent: participants must be fully aware of the potential risks and costs involved in a treatment or procedure.
• An informed decision should be made before volunteered participation.
• Participants need to give their permission to the psychologist.
• Guardians must provide consent for participants younger than 18 years old.
• Withdrawal rights: Participants should be allowed to leave a study at any time if they feel uncomfortable and allowed to withdraw their data.
• They should be informed from the start of the study that they have the right to withdraw.
• Voluntary participation: Subjects must exercise their own free will in deciding whether to participate in a research activity, and must to be pressured to participate in the study.
• Confidentiality: Participants and the data gained from them must be kept anonymous unless they give their full consent.
• Maintaining confidentiality involves taking care throughout collection, recording, accessing, storage, giving out, and disposal of information.
• Privacy: This refers to the right to control access to personal information and belongings. Both physical space and personal information are included in the context of privacy.
• Deception: Psychologists sometimes provide false or incomplete information to participants for the purpose of successful research, an example of this is the placebo effect.

Protection from Harm

• Physical harm: This covers physical injury or damage to a person's body.
• Psychological harm: This includes emotional and mental distress.

Animals in Research

• The use of animals for human purposes is acceptable and must benefit the world as a whole.
• The overall use of animals should be minimized.
• To minimize the pain and distress caused to animals, animals should be used according to the 3 R's.

The 3 R's:

• Replacement: This refers to when the use of animals should be replaced with alternative methods.
• Reduction: Minimizing the number of animals used in research studies is important.
• Refinement: This refers to improving the welfare of animals used in research studies.
• Researchers are encouraged to minimize pain and distress by using appropriate anaesthetics and analgesics.
• Ensuring adequate housing and providing social and environmental enrichment, as well as using humane endpoints, helps to minimize suffering.
• Animal research is subject to strict regulations and ethical guidelines to ensure the welfare of the animals involved.

Unethical Experiments

• The Harlow "Pit of Despair" experiments in the 1960s involved placing infant monkeys in a small chamber with no social contact for up to two years. Monkeys developed severe psychological disorders, including self-mutilation and depression.
• Cooper's experiments kept young kittens in circler boxes which restricted their vision.
• Some of the boxes had horizontal lines, and the others had vertical.

This quiz covers key principles in research ethics, including voluntary participation, deception, confidentiality, and withdrawal rights. It also explores the role of ethics committees and guidelines for animal research, focusing on minimizing harm and ensuring ethical conduct.