While conducting psychological research is critical to advancing the existing body of knowledge in various disciplines in the field, the use of human subjects in the trials often raises a few ethical concerns. Usually, such studies threaten to compromise the participant’s confidentiality, given that their medical history could be made public to complement or justify the study’s findings. Another key ethical issue is patient safety, which could be compromised in some trials. A notable example of a case that nearly compromised participant health is Milgram’s infamous obedience experiment, which deceived them to be delivering life-threatening shocks to another person. The risk of the participants developing life-long trauma-related conditions with such experiments could be high, citing the need to have an ethical framework for such trials.
Besides, psychological research involving human subjects might often run into issues of informed consent. This consideration is significant for researchers at universities and prisons, where the research populations are accorded less free will. The permission for such studies should be documented, to prevent cases of coercion that could lead to a violation of fundamental human rights or deliberate attempts to distort the study’s outcomes.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Researchers should follow the ethical guidelines set by regulatory psychological research bodies to protect human subjects. In the US, the regulations are issued by the American Psychological Association and the British Psychological Society for the UK. These frameworks require that researchers dealing with human subjects anticipate the potential risks associated with the study. If possible, they should conduct a debriefing to minimise misconceptions and anxiety, as it was the case with Zimbrado’s prisoner study that intensely disturbed participants. Also, researchers should not deliberately mislead or deceive participants into building an ambiguity, but instead, use overt ways to prevent leaking information that might ruin the study’s objectives. Likewise, researchers should refrain from leaking the participants’ personal private information. For instance, no names should be used in reports.
