The world is full of questions. People are constantly searching for answers. People read, explore, and investigate to find answers. Researchers are professionals who search for answers but they are governed by rules and regulations on how to set up studies to find answers. Ethics are the guidelines or standards used by researchers when setting up a study. Ethical research studies abide by the guidelines set up by the American Psychological Association (APA). They need to understand concept of risk to benefit ratio. One of the ethical guidelines explored in this paper is informed consent and the impact on psychological research. Under the APA Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct, section 8.02 explains informed consent. Research is important but guidelines are necessary to protect the researchers and the participants and to make sure the results are valid and reliable.
Ethics
Many refer to ethics as the moral stature of what a person believes is right or wrong. Ethics do help a reasonable person refrain from doing what society has determined to be wrong such as murder or rape, as well as other wrongs and they influence morals, beliefs and principles. Ethics are logical and rational standards of right and wrong that guide a human being by determining what a person should do. Standards of ethics include accepted basic rights, obligations, value to society, objectivity, justice, or specific moralities. Ethics include qualities such as honesty, compassion, and loyalty as well as rights such as right to life and right to privacy. Ethical standards are supported by consistent and substantiated explanations. Ethics are a continuous study within one’s self to ensure one’s standards are reasonable, practical, and und...
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...make sure the participant is informed of all aspects of the study, the risks involved, and debrief them when the study is over. Research is important but guidelines must be followed to ensure the participant has knowledge of all aspects of the study and is a willing and informed participant.
Works Cited
American Psychological Association. (2011). Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct. Retrieved from http://http//:www.apa.org/ethic/code/index.aspx
Pranati, P. Perspectives in Clinical Research, 1(4), 124-127. doi:10.4103/2229-3485.71769
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Shaughnessy, J.J., Zechmeister, E. B., & Zechmeister, J.S. (2009). Research Methods in Psychology (8th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.Research Methods in Psychology (8th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
During the process of research, professionals collect data or identifiable private information through intervention or interaction. While this is a vital part of the scientific and medical fields, every precaution must be taken by researchers to protect the participants' rights. Ethics, outlined by the Belmont report; requirements, described by the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS); and regulations, laid out by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are verified by an Institutional Review Board (IRB). This procedure assures that all human rights are safeguarded during the entire research process.
Ethics refers to a system of moral standards that guide the decision for human conduct of what is right and wrong based on everyday life situations, usually in terms rights, obligations, benefits, fairness, or virtue. Ethics is used as a formal guideline for conducting business in order to minimize pain to the greater number of people as a whole. The principles of ethics come from the knowledge and understanding of the word of God, the Bible. It tells us how we ought to think and behave toward one another considering first, how we want to be treated. For instance, we have the right to freedom of speech as long as we don’t insult the integrity of others. In addition, God gives us examples for how make right decisions and warns of those to avoid. Knowing this, that if we have love in our hearts first, for our heavenly father then we’ll have compassion for our fellow mankind to behave ethically.
In qualitative studies, the researchers are unaware of the interview is likely to untwist. Therefore, informed consent is a must.
American Psychological Association (APA). (2002). Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct. American Psychologist, 57, 1060-1073.
Truog, Robert D., Walter Robinson, Adrienne Randolph, and Alan Morris. "Is Informed Consent Always Necessary For Randomized, Controlled Trials?" The New England Journal of Medicine 340, (March 1999): 804-807.
Informed consent is the basis for all legal and moral aspects of a patient’s autonomy. Implied consent is when you and your physician interact in which the consent is assumed, such as in a physical exam by your doctor. Written consent is a more extensive form in which it mostly applies when there is testing or experiments involved over a period of time. The long process is making sure the patient properly understands the risk and benefits that could possible happen during and after the treatment. As a physician, he must respect the patient’s autonomy. For a patient to be an autonomous agent, he must have legitimate moral values. The patient has all the rights to his medical health and conditions that arise. When considering informed consent, the patient must be aware and should be able to give a voluntary consent for the treatment and testing without being coerced, even if coercion is very little. Being coerced into giving consent is not voluntary because others people’s opinions account for part of his decision. Prisoners and the poor population are two areas where coercion is found the most when giving consent. Terminally ill patients also give consent in hope of recovering from their illness. Although the possibilities are slim of having a successful recovery, they proceed with the research with the expectation of having a positive outcome. As stated by Raab, “informed consent process flows naturally from the ‘partnership’ between physician and patient” (Raab). Despite the fact that informed consent is supposed to educate the patients, it is now more of an avoidance of liability for physicians (Raab). Although the physician provides adequate information to his patient, how can he ensure that his patient properly ...
Myers, D. G. (2013). Psychology: Tenth Edition in Modules. New York: Worth Publishers. Retrieved May 5th, 2013
Gall, S. B., Beins, B., & Feldman, A. (2001). The gale encyclopedia of psychology. (2nd ed., pp. 271-273). Detroit, MI: Gale Group.
Code of ethics act as a promise to protect and support the safety of individuals in society, supports as a leading light it help the supporters of an occupation, resolve ethical problems and act as a protector the community. A code of ethics discloses and conserves the current viewpoint professionals on in what way to make ethical decisions. It stresses importance on obligation to moral values and vital beliefs. Application of a code of ethics helps us to guarantee that members of the profession will be accountable for their actions. It helps us to learn about the responsibility we have for ourselves, our colleagues and to the social structure of the profession. It is essential that the present and future psychologist should be aware of the formal ethical codes of practices in psychology. The American Psychological Association (APA) developed this formal Ethics Code which demonstrates the approaches to the psychologist about logical, educational, and clinical behaviors to be followed while working as a licensed person. By applying the ethical code a psychologist can identify ethical issues, interrelate with others professionally. This can inhibit and solve ethical dilemmas, and he /she will be able achieve their professional protagonists and responsibilities.
American Psychiatric Association. (2010). Ethical principles of psychologists and code of conduct. American Psychological Association (APA), Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/ethics/code/index.aspx
Informed consent is a very serious decision a patient has to make when it comes to their health and consenting to procedures that are believed to cure or treat their current health status. It is important to address the effectiveness of the role a physician play in the informed consent process assuring that the patient has given truly informed consent and what safeguards can be put in place to assure the patient is exercising informed consent. Informed consent is based on the fact that the person consenting is a rational individual that is aware of the action to which he/she is consenting. Allen and McNamara (2011) notes that "On the standard understanding, the important elements of informed consent are the provision of information, the voluntariness of the choice and the competence of the chooser to make the choice— so the potential research participant should be provided with information relevant to the decision to participate, they should be able to choose freely about their participation and they should be competent to decide.
Ethical guidelines are defined as rules and regulations that sets limitation. The research on ethical guidelines states that there are rules and regulations published by the British Psychological Society (BPS). The objectives of the BPS is to maintain the standards of public awareness of psychology by training. They also aim at improving the practice in psychology and its effects in the society. (Become a psychologist, 2011).The guidelines are consent, deception, debriefing, withdrawal from the investigation, confidentiality, protection of participants and observational research. According to the BPS guidelines consent means to give assent, as to the proposal of another, Confidentiality is the nondisclosure of information except to another authorized person, deception is to cause to believe what is not true; mislead, and debriefing is the act or process of debriefing or of being debriefed. Withdrawal from the investigation means, an act or process of withdrawing; retreat, removal, or detachment, protection of participants is to defend from trouble, harm, attack and observational research is deliberate and purposeful perception that is conditioned by the need to solve a problem. (The Palgrave website)
America Psychological Association. (2010). Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct. Retrieved 02 09, 2011, from America Psiychological Association: http://www.apa.org/ethics/code/index.aspx
Ethics is a code of thinking and conduct administered by a combination of personal, moral, legal, and social standards of what is
In addition I will make sure that IRB will have all of my information about my study and the participants and also the consent process. This will make the research process easier and it will ensure that the confidentiality of the participants and everyone involved will be protected at all cost. I will also keep in mind that dishonesty includes fabrication and falsification, faulty data gathering, misleading authorship as well as sneaky publication practices.