The Ethical Guidelines for Research on Human Subjects
Has it ever crossed your mind that maybe one day you, yourself will be asked to be in an experiment? If you attend a four year university it is fairly likely that at some point in your four years you will be asked to be part of an experiment. It could be as simple as getting paid to play Xbox for a few hour, or letting people watch you sleep. Whatever the case may be there are certain ethical guidelines that must be met for your safety. According to http://psychology.about.com there are three major standards that must be met.
The first standard is Participation must be voluntary. This means that all ethical experimentation must be done by subjects who are willing to participate in the study. Grey areas can occur in this area at places link universities or prisons where people are encouraged to participate.
The second standard is: The researchers must obtain informed consent. Informed consent simply means that the researcher or researchers must inform the participants in their experiments of the procedure they are going to follow, and any potential risk that may arise from participating in the experiment they are administering.
The third and final guideline is: The researcher must maintain participant confidentiality. Confidentiality is probably the most important of all the guidelines when it comes to gaining accurate responses. For the researchers to gain accurate results the participant must be guaranteed that the researchers will not share any of their responses with anyone not involved in the study.
As you can see these three things play a crucial role into how research is conducted. Can you imagine participating in a study without any of the three previously discusses rules being in place. Imagine if we didn't have the rule of "participation must be voluntary." What if researchers could force you to participate? I'm guessing most people would not enjoy that. Let's also think about if the third standard wasn't in place. Many people could be tricked into doing an experiment they believe to be completely harmless, when in reality it has catastrophic health effects. To me this idea of a world with no research guidelines is a scary thought, and I'm thankful the APA has these guidelines in effect for mine, and everyone else's well being while participating in various studies around this country.
Below I have posted two links the first is a link to an on line article outlining the main points of psychological research. This greatly assisted me in understanding ethics on human subjects, and it was also very helpful in making my own page. The second is a link to a youtube video that gives examples of how each of the three standards can be violated. I think the video did a good job of "dumbing it down" and making it very easy to understand.
Links:
http://psychology.about.com/od/ethicalissues/a/resethics.htm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LffbSjkiK0E
The first standard is Participation must be voluntary. This means that all ethical experimentation must be done by subjects who are willing to participate in the study. Grey areas can occur in this area at places link universities or prisons where people are encouraged to participate.
The second standard is: The researchers must obtain informed consent. Informed consent simply means that the researcher or researchers must inform the participants in their experiments of the procedure they are going to follow, and any potential risk that may arise from participating in the experiment they are administering.
The third and final guideline is: The researcher must maintain participant confidentiality. Confidentiality is probably the most important of all the guidelines when it comes to gaining accurate responses. For the researchers to gain accurate results the participant must be guaranteed that the researchers will not share any of their responses with anyone not involved in the study.
As you can see these three things play a crucial role into how research is conducted. Can you imagine participating in a study without any of the three previously discusses rules being in place. Imagine if we didn't have the rule of "participation must be voluntary." What if researchers could force you to participate? I'm guessing most people would not enjoy that. Let's also think about if the third standard wasn't in place. Many people could be tricked into doing an experiment they believe to be completely harmless, when in reality it has catastrophic health effects. To me this idea of a world with no research guidelines is a scary thought, and I'm thankful the APA has these guidelines in effect for mine, and everyone else's well being while participating in various studies around this country.
Below I have posted two links the first is a link to an on line article outlining the main points of psychological research. This greatly assisted me in understanding ethics on human subjects, and it was also very helpful in making my own page. The second is a link to a youtube video that gives examples of how each of the three standards can be violated. I think the video did a good job of "dumbing it down" and making it very easy to understand.
Links:
http://psychology.about.com/od/ethicalissues/a/resethics.htm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LffbSjkiK0E