Ethical Issues in Social Influence Research
Ethical issues in social influence research pertain to the moral considerations and potential harm to participants involved in studies that examine how individuals are influenced by others. These issues include informed consent, protection from harm, and the right to withdraw from the study. Researchers must navigate these ethical considerations to ensure the well-being and autonomy of their participants.
8 Key excerpts on "Ethical Issues in Social Influence Research"
eBook - ePubQuantitative Research Methods in Consumer Psychology
Contemporary and Data Driven Approaches
- Paul Hackett, Paul Hackett(Authors)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...11 Ethical Issues in Conducting Psychological Research David B. Resnik 1 Ethics and Scientific Research Ethics (or morals) are standards of conduct, which distinguish between right and wrong, and good and bad. While all people in society have an obligation to behave ethically, ethical conduct is especially important in scientific research for several reasons. First, ethical conduct helps scientists obtain research goals. Fabricating and falsifying data are not effective means of obtaining truth. Second, ethical conduct is important for promoting collaboration and cooperation among psychological researchers. Researchers need to be able to trust that their collaborators and colleagues will not fabricate or falsify data, intentionally bias results, steal ideas or data, or violate the confidentiality of peer review. Third, ethical conduct is important for holding psychological researchers accountable to the public and fostering the public’s support for research. The public is not likely to fund or participate in research that it regards as unethical (Shamoo & Resnik, 2015). Professional societies, government agencies, academic institutions, and scientific journals have developed various rules and guidelines to promote the ethical conduct of research (Shamoo & Resnik, 2015). Some of these, such as rules concerning misconduct (discussed next), are enforced by legal or administrative sanctions. Others, such as professional codes, may be enforced only by the expectations of one’s peers. The American Psychological Association (2010) has a code of ethics that addresses research conduct. Other professional societies for psychological research have similar documents. Many journals that publish psychological research follow the guidelines developed by the American Psychological Association (APA) or the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (2015a, b)...
eBook - ePubIntroducing Research Methodology
Thinking Your Way Through Your Research Project
- Uwe Flick(Author)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- SAGE Publications Ltd(Publisher)
...3 Ethical Issues in Social Research How this chapter will help you You will: see how ethical issues are involved in social research projects develop your sensitivity to ethical questions in social research appreciate the complexity of ethical considerations, and be able to plan and conduct your research project within an ethical framework. In later chapters, we will consider the strengths and limitations of social research. There the main focus will be on methodological or technical limitations. We will consider in more detail such questions as: What can we grasp with one method, what is missed by it, and how can we overcome this by using several methods? We will also consider a more fundamental limitation, asking: When should you refrain from doing your research? This chapter, however, focuses on limitations to social research to keep in mind, though of a different sort. We explore such questions as: Which ethical problems should be taken into account in research? Which ethical boundaries are touched and how can you approach ethical issues in doing your social research project? As we shall see, these questions involve us in some very general rules and problems. Principles of Ethically Acceptable Research Definitions of research ethics Ethical issues are relevant to research in general. They are especially relevant in medical and nursing research. Here we find the following definition of research ethics, which may be applicable to other research areas too: Research ethics addresses the question of which ethically relevant issues caused by the intervention of researchers can be expected to impact on the people with or about whom they research. It is concerned in addition with the steps taken to protect those who participate in the research, if this is necessary. (Schnell and Heinritz 2006, p. 17) Principles In the context of the social sciences, Murphy and Dingwall (2001, p. 339) have developed an ‘ethical theory’ that provides a useful framework for this chapter...
eBook - ePub- Ian Fairholm(Author)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- Bloomsbury Academic(Publisher)
...The use of the Internet, for example, as both a research object and a medium for data collection, has developed significantly since the 1990s, and in a relatively short space of time the range of methodologies used and topics addressed by Internet-based research has increased greatly (Bell & Kennedy, 1999). Internet-based research is just one example of how psychological research can change dramatically over time and can throw up new ethical issues and challenges that might not even have been contemplated in earlier times. Definition of ethics Of course ethical issues are not unique to psychology. The term ‘ethics’ refers to a very broad range of topics and areas but can basically be considered to refer to a series of rules and guidelines that are useful and important when carrying out interactions with people and animals. As with most issues and debates within psychology, the origins of the consideration of ethical issues can be found within philosophy. Philosophers have considered, over the course of many centuries, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, equality and justice, and they have also sought answers to questions such as ‘What does it mean to live a good life?’ Many of these concepts and questions are not really directly appropriate to the field of psychology, but ethical issues are not just a series of philosophical quandaries – applied ethics is a discipline within philosophy that is specifically interested in how theoretical ethical issues apply to real-life situations. Psychology is involved with a number of real-life situations that raise ethical issues, and these mainly relate to the duty of care that psychologists have, whether to patients or clients in the case of clinical psychologists or psychotherapists, or to participants or subjects in the case of psychological research...
eBook - ePubLaboratory Psychology
A Beginner's Guide
- Julia Nunn, Julia Nunn(Authors)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- Psychology Press(Publisher)
...Unethical practice can reduce the external validity of the research if it results in research methods that cannot be translated into practice. On the other hand, research that is poorly designed can reduce the ethical standing of the research, because the potential scientific benefits that can accrue are often minimal, and therefore less likely to offset possible risks to the participants. So good ethical practice makes for better science. SUMMARY By now you should: be aware of what an ethical problem is; appreciate how ethical problems can arise; understand how science and ethics are related; be viewing ethical dilemmas as a challenge! The rise of ethical concerns in psychological research In the past few decades, ethical issues in the social sciences have become a topic of growing concern as researchers try simultaneously to produce valid scientific work and protect the welfare of their participants. An index of this rising concern is the number of ethical guidelines that have sprung up in an attempt to codify ethical behaviour. But why has this concern only been expressed recently? In the 1960s discussions about the ethical implications of social science were rare, despite the fact that experiments involving deception, privacy invasion, and threats to confidentiality were accepted as a valid way of conducting such research. Kimmel (1988) suggests that the discussion of ethical practices at that time was taken as an indication that one had not yet outgrown a pre-scientific nature, bringing into the scientific domain issues that did not belong there. Hopefully very few researchers still hold this view! An outline of some of the important developments that led to a change of viewpoint and, in turn, to a rise of ethical concerns in psychological research appears next. One of the earliest influences was that of World War II...
- Bruce B. Frey(Author)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- SAGE Publications, Inc(Publisher)
...Issues of consent, privacy, and transparency are central to these debates and call up contrasting notions of ethics within and beyond these areas. There are no clear answers to these issues, but the goal is to think about them proactively and to set up specific systems for a study so that the ways to deal with these issues are clear at the outset. Sharon M. Ravitch See also American Educational Research Association ; American Psychological Association ; Assent ; Belmont Report ; Confidentiality ; Ethical Issues in Evaluation ; Feminist Evaluation ; Human Subjects Protections ; Human Subjects Research: Definition of ; Informed Consent ; Institutional Review Boards ; Interviewer Bias ; Power ; Qualitative Research Methods ; Selection Bias ; Trustworthiness ; Validity Further Readings Alvesson, M., & Sköldberg, K. (2009). Reflexive methodology: New vistas for qualitative research. Los Angeles, CA : Sage. American Educational Research Association. (2011). Code of ethics: American Educational Research Association. Educational Researcher, 40 (3), 145 – 156. American Psychological Association. (2010). Ethical principles of psychologists and code of conduct (including 2010 amendments). Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/ethics/code/ Cochran-Smith, M., & Lytle, S. L. (2009). Inquiry as stance: Practitioner research for the next generation. New York, NY : Teachers College Press. Hammersley, M., & Traianou, A. (2012). Ethics in qualitative research: Controversies and contexts. Los Angeles, CA : Sage. Jacoby, S., & Gonzales, P. (1991). The constitution of expert-novice in scientific discourse. Issues in Applied Linguistics, 2 (2). Retrieved from http://escholarship.org/uc/item/3fd7z5k4 Ogden, R. (2008a). Anonymity. In L. M. Given (Ed.), The SAGE encyclopedia of qualitative research methods (Vol. 1, pp. 17 – 18). Thousand Oaks, CA : Sage. Ogden, R. (2008b). Confidentiality. In L. M. Given (Ed.), The SAGE encyclopedia of qualitative research methods (Vol...
eBook - ePubResearch Methods in Applied Settings
An Integrated Approach to Design and Analysis, Third Edition
- Jeffrey A. Gliner, George A. Morgan, Nancy L. Leech(Authors)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...14 Ethical Issues in Conducting the Study DOI: 10.4324/9781315723082-14 Throughout this book, we have been discussing the principles of applied behavioral research. In this chapter, we discuss ethical principles of human research and a variety of ethical issues related to the various steps in the process of doing research, including obtaining approval from institutional review boards (IRBs). Institutional Review Board (IRB) A group that reviews proposals for studies with human participants before the research can begin; the committee is mandated by federal regulations to protect human subjects and to decide whether the research plan has adequately dealt with ethical issues related to the project; also called human subjects committee. Ethical Principles in Human Research Historical Overview There have been ethical problems regarding the treatment of human subjects throughout history, but we begin our summary with the Nazi research atrocities of 1933–1945. In contrast to the rest of this book, we used the phrase human subjects rather than participants. The latter is a relatively recent change that emphasizes the collaborative and voluntary relationship of investigator and participant. The Nazi research atrocities were experiments conducted by respected German doctors and professors on concentration camp inmates that led to their mutilation or death. Although it is tempting to think that these atrocities could be blamed on prison guards, soldiers, or rogue scientists, the evidence indicates otherwise (e.g., Pross, 1992). Not only were many of these doctors respected, but Germany also had more advanced moral and legal regulations concerning consent and special protections for vulnerable subjects than any other country at that time (Young, 1999). As a result of the trial of these doctors, the Nuremberg code was prescribed by an international court in 1947. Its first principle stated that voluntary consent of human subjects is absolutely essential...
eBook - ePubSuccessful Research Projects
A Step-by-Step Guide
- Bernard C. Beins(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- SAGE Publications, Inc(Publisher)
...But there are legal regulations that affect researchers from all disciplines. The federal regulations were instituted in the 1970s and have undergone periodic review. The regulations change at times, so it is always a good idea to refer to them or to seek guidance from a researcher who is familiar with them. Table 3.2 Ethical Standards Established by the American Psychological Association (APA) Regarding Research and Publication Standard 8: Research and Publication Standard How It Is Likely to Affect You 8.01 Institutional Approval You need to obtain approval from your school’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) before starting recruitment of participants or data collection. 8.02 Informed Consent to Research When collecting data, you need to inform participants about Purpose, length, and procedures of your study Their right to decline participation and to withdraw at any time The consequences of withdrawing (There should be no penalties in nonclinical, psychological research.) Potential risks or other negative aspects of participation (Most psychological research is relatively free of risks or negative aspects.) Benefits from participating in the research Limits of confidentiality (In most nonclinical research, there should be complete confidentiality.) Incentives for participating (This is often extra credit in a class.) A person to contact in case of questions or concerns NOTE: APA has guidelines for research involving clinical treatment...
eBook - ePub- Richard Hugman, David Smith(Authors)
- 2002(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Chapter 3 Ethical issues in social work research Geraldine Macdonald and Kenneth Macdonald ‘nam et ipsa scientia potestas est’ for knowledge itself is power Francis Bacon (1597) INTRODUCTION There is no shortage of material regarding the ethics of social work or social work research, but the subject matter has interesting biases: we seem to enjoy discussions of the ethics of ‘doing’ to the exclusion of the ethics of ‘not doing’; some things come in for scrutiny (behaviour therapy, the abuse of power by researchers) whereas others do not (doing what feels right, even if it lacks supporting evidence). The decision-making rule used to select topics for this chapter was to focus on more neglected issues, and areas which would benefit from rethinking. We begin with the fundamental issue of the relationship between research and social work, before turning to more familiar territory: the ethical dilemmas inherent in undertaking research in social work. Research might be viewed as the continual battle against the bewitchment of our senses by immediate experience...
