Ethical issues and guidelines in psychological research: informed consent, deception, the right to withdraw, protection from harm, confidentiality and debriefing, and how researchers deal with these issues.

What this dot point is asking

OCR wants you to explain the key ethical issues and guidelines in psychological research, informed consent, deception, the right to withdraw, protection from harm, confidentiality and debriefing, and how researchers deal with these issues.

The key ethical issues

• Informed consent: participants should agree to take part knowing what the study involves and any risks, so they can make a genuine choice.
• Deception: participants should not be misled or have information withheld about the study's true aim, more than is necessary.
• Right to withdraw: participants must be free to leave the study at any time, and to withdraw their data afterwards, without pressure.
• Protection from harm: participants should not face more physical or psychological harm (distress, embarrassment, injury) than they would in everyday life.
• Confidentiality: participants' data and identity must be kept private and anonymous.

Debriefing and dealing with ethical issues

Researchers deal with ethical issues in several ways:

• Gain informed consent in advance (and, for under-16s, parental consent), or use presumptive consent where it cannot be gained directly.
• Minimise deception, using it only where the study could not work otherwise (for example, to prevent demand characteristics), and only with ethics committee approval.
• Make the right to withdraw clear at the start and during the study.
• Protect from harm by avoiding distress and stopping the study if harm occurs.
• Keep data confidential by using numbers or initials instead of names.
• Provide a full debrief afterwards, which is especially important if any deception was used.

Why ethics matters

Ethical guidelines exist because some classic studies caused distress or used deception (this is a common evaluation point for the core studies, for example concerns about exposing children to aggression in Cooper and Mackie, or consent in Bickman's field experiment). Today, an ethics committee reviews studies in advance, and researchers must follow the guidelines, balancing the value of the research against the rights and wellbeing of participants.

Evaluating ethical guidelines

Ethical guidelines matter because they protect participants and maintain trust in psychology. Their strength is that they prevent the harm and deception seen in some older studies and ensure consent, withdrawal and debriefing. The tension is that strict ethics can make some research harder: for example, deception is sometimes needed to get valid results (avoiding demand characteristics), and full informed consent can spoil a study. Researchers manage this by seeking ethics committee approval, using the minimum necessary deception, and debriefing fully, so that valid research can be done without sacrificing participants' rights.

Try this

Q1. Name three ethical issues in psychological research. [3 marks]

• Cue. Any three: informed consent, deception, right to withdraw, protection from harm, confidentiality.

Q2. What is a debrief? [2 marks]

• Cue. A full explanation after the study of its true aim and any deception, with the right to withdraw data.

Q3. How can a researcher protect participants from harm? [1 mark]

• Cue. Ensure no more risk than everyday life, and stop the study if harm occurs.