Do strict ethics make good research in social psychology impossible?
Introduction
A long-term argument have lasted for a long time about the ethics in psychology. Some call it protected the human right and some call it delayed the knowledge’s grow. The ethics in psychology are widely used in order to protect the public and express clear ethical principles (The British Psychological Society, 2009). But some may claim that the ethics make the research and experiment harder to process since it gives much pressure and limit to the experiment and these limitation may violated the spirit of science.
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Nowadays, the ethics are widely used and seen as the very first thing to consider about the experiment. But then, what is the definition of the ethics of psychology? From the British Psychological Society, the ethics of psychology are set as the highest standards of professionalism and it wants to provide the ethical standards to all. These ethics gives four main principles to all psychologist, which are: respect, competence, responsibility and integrity (The British Psychological Society, 2009). The American Psychological Association’s ethical principles is also one of the widely-used ethical principles. Within the code of conduct, the APA claimed that the ethics have to consider about 10 part, which is: resolving ethical issues, competence, human relations, privacy and confidentiality, advertising and other public statements, record keepings and fees, education and training, research and publication, assessment and therapy (American Psychological Association, 2010). Through these ethical principles, we can see some common part between these principles. They are both consider about the trust between experimenter and participants, harmless to the participants and representative. To give a brief define of ethics in psychological, it is a guide to every experimenter to consider if the experiment can meet these three points.
The field of social psychology have risen at 20th century since more and more psychologists recognized an individual is born to have a society role (Lewin, 1939). The society role would form into difference group and there are particular behaviour within these group. The emotion, behaviour, morality and character within society from the group are the social psychologists consider about. The definition of social psychology is simple, it looks into the interaction between people and find the reason of people’s reaction. This psychology, addressed the social problem by observing the impact from group to individual and explore these impact by the influence and perception (R.Goethals, 2007). For now, the field of social psychology have been developed to study different aspect of society, such as career, religious, race. These aspect are important part of the society since every people should find their identity within these group and these group will affect their society role as well. For example, a butcher can also be a Buddhist and vegetarian at the same time and he may have different behaviour within these different field or group. He kill the animal, or at least he dismembered the animal body as his job, but he pray for the animal soul and is a vegetarian. The contradiction between the job, belief and regions is the social psychology consider about. Such behaviours, are affected by the group the people in.
Within the ethics of psychology, the social psychologist have to beware of the process of the experiment. However, we all know there are many famous social psychology experiment are lack of the ethics support, for example Little Albert to Stanford Prison Experiment. These experiment are unethical but seem to give us enormous information and gain a place, no matter the reputation, in the social psychology field. Are these experiment showed us a ugly fact that ethics factors are getting in the way of finding the truth?
No is my answer. The strict ethics do have their place within social psychology experiment and it is important for every social psychologist to consider at the first place. A strict code of ethics in experiment is important because it gives us a great representative and it protects the human right. These code show us the society’s advancement.
Content
A research gives us findings by doing different kind of experiment on the participants and observe the reaction from them. We can think that a good research should give us great findings and it must fulfils the aim of the research. But is it the only consideration of a good research? A researcher of a good research, for me, should beware they are also a human-being. The human right should apply on both researcher and participant. A researcher should not unscrupulously fulfil the aims of the research. They should remember a men never impose on others what they would not choose for yourself. From the professional level, a good research should have clear statement of research aims, clear instruction of research content, good methodology, an unbiased fashion, good resource and professional researcher (White, 2006). It is a government saying of good research. And from others opinions, a good research should tell the truth about the research, openly report the methods and results, do not steal others research, build the research in order and fair assessment of others research (Bengt Gustafsson, Goran Germeren and Bo Petersson, 2006). From these thought on good research, we can easily find that the common point on the definition of a good research. First, a good research should be conducted in a neat order. The research should has a clear aim and well methodology. Second, it should be widely open to the public and clearly introduce everything within the research. And third, it should be conduct in a fair environment. No one should be treat differently because of the race, religious, age, sex, etc.
These point of the good research are both match the ethics of a research and it seems to make the argument of “ethics make a good social research impossible” to an end. But we have to consider some points of the argument. Violation of the sprite of the social science, getting in way of the research process and different explanations of ethics, these are the points that we should consider about. Social science, is a kind of science looking forward to find a breakthrough of human norm. It want to give us an advanced society and make us more willing to accept others. But the ethics code make it becomes complicated. For example, the most eyes-catching and shocking news would be the suffering of others. And “the chamber of despair” would be a great example of it. Dr. Harry Harlow conducted an experiment of isolation. By isolating some infant monkeys from its mothers, his team want to find out the isolation do to the monkey. The infant monkeys are both coming out the chamber with mental illness and never recover. The experiment show that the early isolation can make monkey, or even human, become lack of social skills and have no ability to learn these skill (Maggie, 2008). This experiment has given us a great result that isolation can do to a species. But this experiment have do serious damage to the monkey. The ethics of research actually to animals. By APA, the laboratory animals deserved well care and housing. Also, these animals should be treated as they are human being. The experimenter should use as least laboratory animals as possible and the species should suitable to the aims of the experiment (American Psychological Association, 2012). Within the experiment of infant monkey, we can see an important problem, which Dr. Harry Harlow never treat the infant monkey as human being but only some experiment subject. Although his team have already got enough information of isolation do to the monkey, they still keep the experiment going for a year. It does un-recoverable damage to the monkey. We all claimed that monkey and human are close relative and it is a good selection of experiment species, but it goes against the right of the animal. They actually have the right to grow in an appropriate environment. Some may claimed that human are the paragon of animals. Human have higher right than other species.
“Some animal are more equal than others” – Animal Farm
This famous quota has made a clear statement of these thought. Equal, is to provide a better environment, right to those who have less power. There are no “more equal” animal in the natural. Within the field of research and experiment, we have to prove an equal right environment to the laboratory animal since we have used to force, or their life, to find out the effect of an assumption. It is about doing no harm and build up a non-bias, equal place to the research participant.
The public deception research are also one of the hot topic about research ethics. Take “Piliavin and Piliavin Experiment” as an example, this research was conducted duo to the violent crime of Kitty Genovese. Piliavin and Piliavin want to see if the public would help a drunk one in a more accurate way. Then they conducted a research that a one who act as drunk and observed about how many people are willing to help. In the result, most of the participants, who never know they were being observed, were willing to help the actor (Shuttleworth, 2009). It comes two research-ethics problem – the acknowledgement of the participants and the time base. The research conducted after the case of Kitty Genovese was widely reported and the citizen were afraid of someone was hurt duo to their ignorance to help. What more, the participants never found out they were being observed, which go against the ethics code that the participants have to be well-informed and participle at will. Both problem lead to ethic problem and accuracy problem. The researcher used deception to rise the accuracy but it goes against the ethics code of research. At first, we have to consider that “Is there another way to conduct the same research?” and “What will happen if the participants acknowledge they are being observed?”. It would be hard to the researcher to know the actual response if they informed the participant at the first place. The participants may think it is just a test and act differently. As researcher, it is not a result we want to see. The use of deception is hard to balance and we have to put effort to reduce the possible harm do to the participants. For now, most of the public deception research will give be given a debriefing to the participants to inform them they are being observed. The identity of the participants will not be wide-open to the public. And about the use of the deception, the researcher have to consider that “Can the use of deception is avoidable?” and “Is other reasonable method would be equally effective?” (University of California , 2014).
Conclusion
The strict ethics in social psychology is a long term agreement. The argument are mostly centre around the ethics do to the research and the correctness of the ethics. From content above, I would say that the ethics is important and it really helped to do a good research. Nowadays, the human right is followed with wide interest. The un-ethical research cannot gain great representative and it would be doubt about the accuracy. It is fact that the unethical research in past have given us great result in the field of social psychology. A good research is not only concern about the result, but also the exemplification of the human society. An advanced society should beware of the human right and the equality of every species at the first place.
We know that the ethics code is not perfect and we know it has to be improve. We accept things cannot be avoided and look forward to do minimise harm to the participant and researcher. Using deception as the example, the deceptive techniques should be used in a very careful way. It can be only use when other method is not possible to be as effective equality and it should not cause psychology and physical damage to the participant (Behnke, 2009). We learn from the argument and we improve ourselves. It is the spirit of human society and social psychology – acceptation and will of norm breaking.
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We know that the strict ethics of psychology is only a guide line and we can follow it at own will. But the ethics do helped the researcher to conduct, to improve their research and make it a good research. We have to know, a good research is not only about great outcome and result, but also the will of improving human life.
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Reference
American Psychological Association, 2010. Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct. Second Edition Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
American Psychological Association, 2012. Guidelines for Ethical Conduct in the Care and Use of Nonhuman Animals in Research, Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Behnke, D. S., 2009. Reading the Ethics Code more deeply. Monitor on Psychology, 40(4), p. 66.
Bengt Gustafsson, Goran Germeren and Bo Petersson, 2006. Good Research Pracitce – What is it?. First Edition Bromma: CM Digitaltryck.
Lewin, K., 1939. Field Theory and Experiment in Social Psychology: Concepts and Methods. American Journal of Sociology, 6(44), pp. 868-896.
Maggie, 2008. ListVerse. [Online] Available at: http://listverse.com/2008/09/07/top-10-unethical-psychological-experiments/ [Access date: 10 11 2014].
R.Goethals, G., 2007. A Century of Social PSychology: Individuals, ideas and investigations. In: M. A. H. a. J. Cooper, The Sage handbook of Social Psychology. London: SAGE Publications Ltd , pp. 3-19.
Shuttleworth, M., 2009. Deception and Research. [Online] Available at: https://explorable.com/deception-and-research [Access: 10 11 2014].
The British Psychological Society, 2009. Code of Ethics and Conduct. First Edition Leicester: The British Psychological Society.
University of California , 2014. CPHS HUIDELINE OF DECEPTION AND INCOMPLETE DISCLOSURE IN RESEARCH, Berkeley: University of California .
White, T., 2006. Principles of Good Research and Research Proposal Guide, Richmond Upon Thames: Policy, Performance and Quality Assurance Unit of Richmond Upon Thames.
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