Ethics in Experimental Psychology

Experimental psychology uses human participants to study many different topics. There are many different kinds of issues that come up with doing an experimental study. There are rules that psychologists have to follow which are called Ethics. Ethics refers to the correct rules that are necessary to follow when carrying out research. When conducting research we have the responsibility to protect research participants from any harm.

One of the ethical rules that psychologists must follow is getting information from vulnerable individuals. Psychologists interact with clients who are not mentally competent. Using them in research requires the psychologist to act in the best interests of these individuals. Such can be also said about animal subjects. Violations of this ethical principle are common in research and can cause legal issues for the psychologist in question.

As a psychologist, there is immense pressure and a lot of complications when trying to conduct research with participants with mental illness. One of the difficulties that can come up is when during research is if the participant acquires side effects of the research study because they had been washed out of their own drug for the study. What is the responsibility of the psychologist in this matter? It is very hard to distinguish if the side effects (such as mood changes and agitation) were the result of the research study or something else. Because the state of a mentally ill individual is different than a normal individual is different, it is very hard to know the exact extent of side effects or problems that may arise for the individual. Sometimes this violates the ethical issue of the research study not being in the best interest of a mentally ill individual.

Just as we cannot know how our research study will affect mentally ill individuals, we also cannot know certainly how it might affect animals. There are more complications involving animal research than there are with mentally ill individuals. Nowadays, animals are widely used in experimental studies. We use them to test medicines and other products. Psychologists have to decide if using animals as test subjects is worth it. How important is the study? Is it worth sacrificing the animal? We like to think that our lives are more important than an animal’s life, but are we right? Before a study involving animals psychologists probably think about these issues.

The ethical problem surrounding animal research is that is it morally wrong to cause animals to suffer. A research study should make certain that the experiments are as painless as possible. A result that saves human lives that couldn’t have been reached using any other methods can be considered somewhat acceptable. Also reducing the number of animals used in experiments could improve experimental techniques. Another ethical issue comes up with animals' rights any experiments should not violate those rights, and then it is morally wrong. Furthermore, the benefits to humanity by performing the experiment should justify the suffering of the animals that were involved in the experiment.

Ethical issues with both mentally ill individuals and animals are similar in some ways but different at the same time. The issue of what is right and what is wrong comes up with both of these test subjects. As a psychologist, it becomes a huge challenge when dealing with these kinds of individuals during a research study. Ethical issues are hard to deal with but they are there for the betterment of experimental studies. As mentioned in earlier paragraphs, there are risks in any kind of experimental research study but there is a question about what is “moral”. Every kind of different research participant has different kinds of moral standards and rules, it is important as psychologists to know and follow them.