Ethical Guidelines and Practices for Psychological Research

Flashcards covering the ethical guidelines and practices for psychological research, including informed consent, confidentiality, deception, and the use of animals in research.

Ethics

Moral principles and codes of behaviour that apply to psychologists. The APS has developed a code of ethics.

Role of the researcher

The researcher’s responsibility to protect participants’ physical and psychological welfare. "DO NO HARM"

Professional Conduct

Any psychological, medical or scientific research work in Australia with patients MUST comply with the most recent update of the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research (update 2015).

BENEFICENCE

Basic premise that benefits to the person must outweigh risks.

Informed consent

Ensures that a patient, client, and research participants are aware of all the potential risks and costs involved in a procedure or investigation.

Confidentiality & Privacy

A participant's right to privacy in terms of access, storage, and disposal of information about them. Participants involvement in and results from an experiment cannot be disclosed to anyone.

Voluntary participation & withdrawal rights

A participant must voluntarily decide to participate in an experiment. There should be no pressure to participate or any negative consequences if they decide not to participate. They must also be able to withdraw from a study at any time without suffering any negative consequences.

Deception in Research

Intentionally misleading participants about their status, Giving false information about the investigators or the research purpose, Omitting information about the real purpose of the research.

Informed consent and deception

Cannot be given if the true nature of the research is deceptively presented. This situation is dealt with administratively via a waiver of portions of the information consent proforma.

REPLACEMENT

Methods that permit a given purpose or activity or project to be achieved without the use of animals.

REDUCTION

Methods for obtaining comparable levels of information from the use of fewer animals or for obtaining more information from the same number of animals

REFINEMENT

Methods that alleviate or minimise potential pain and distress, and enhance animal wellbeing.