Ethics in Psychology | Guidelines, Issues & Importance

The ethics psychology definition means the standards that direct the conduct of its professional members. In considering what is ethics in psychology, it is essential to know that proper ethical practices drive psychology applied to research and therapy to everyday individuals. Before 1953, this was not always the case. Researchers could perform experiments not on good ethical ground, causing severe long-time harm to the participants. The American Psychological Association (APA) has its own Ethical Principals of Psychologists and Code of Conduct for every psychologist who is licensed under their realm. The ethical standards that they adopted have tremendously reduced the amount of unethical, illegal, and immoral acts upon participants. It encompasses ethical rules for human and animal subjects, except for prohibiting the use of primates in studies.

Examples of Ethical Violations in Psychology

As previously mentioned, ethical rules were not always in place, giving researchers free rein to conduct their experiments the way they saw fit with no oversight or consequences. The following studies highlight examples of ethical violations in psychology.

The Monkey Drug Trials

A research facility set out to study drug addiction in animals. They taught monkeys to inject themselves with various addictive drugs such as cocaine and other amphetamines. As the monkeys learned to inject themselves, they were left with many drugs easily within their reach. Eventually, all the drugs were removed. The monkeys began to show signs of withdrawal that included self bodily harm and aggression towards other monkeys. Some of the monkeys even overdosed on the drugs.

When the study was conducted (1969), it was already widely known that the monkeys' drugs were highly addictive to humans, so withdrawal was at least a possibility for the animals. This study is unethical because the animals were taught to self-sabotage through the injections. The researchers never provided solutions to help the animals when they began to show signs of withdrawal.

Speech Therapy Monster Study

This stuttering experiment was conducted by a teacher and graduate student from the University of Iowa. They took twenty-two children from an orphanage, divided them into two groups, and gave one group positive and the other negative speech therapy. Of the twenty-two children, only ten were considered non-fluent and suffered from stuttering, so both positive and negative therapy sessions included fluent children and non-fluent. Negative therapy consisted of belittling language like "Never speak unless you can do it right." In contrast, positive therapy had traditional speech therapy techniques along with language such as "You will be able to speak better later, do not feel ashamed of what others say about you now." The fluent-speaking children who received the negative therapy began to regress in their speech. Also, both the fluent and non-fluent children in the negative group schoolwork decreased, and they became withdrawn from their peers. Naturally, those fluent and non-fluent children who received positive therapy faired well, with those non-fluent children making great strides in recovering from their stuttering difficulty. Those fluent children who received negative therapy developed speech insecurities and suffered negatively mentally and emotionally.

This study was unethical for various reasons. First, the children were wards of the state, with the persons at the home where they resided, allowing them to participate. The legal guardians of the children did not give consent. Also, the children were told that they were receiving speech therapy, not that that they were a part of an experimental study. Therefore, they had no knowledge or choice of placement and potential outcomes from the study.

Stanford Prison Experiment

The Stanford Prison Experiment was conducted to see if the brutal behavior of corrections officers was due to their inherent personality or the prison environment. Similar to the Speech Therapy Monser Study, participants in this experiment were broken into two groups- guards and inmates. Those chosen as guards had to pass a criminal and drug background check and undergo a psychological evaluation and physical tests to ensure that they did not suffer from disabilities. Those who were prisoners were indeed treated as such, as they were blindfolded, individualized, and had to wear a chain locked around one ankle. The guards were told they could do anything necessary to maintain order, except physical violence. The guards took their roles seriously and began to harass the prisoners, instructed them to do pushups with another inmate on their back, and even stripped some prisoners naked after a rebellion. As the days went on, the guards became more hostile, and the prisoners began to suffer from emotional and mental breakdowns. The experiment was shut down after six days, although it was intended to last for two weeks. The study's leading researcher concluded that people settle into situational behavior for the guards and that social roles will make someone act outside their inherent personality. The inmates suffered from learned helplessness because they felt that nothing they did would change the guards' behavior.

This study is primarily considered unethical due to the harmful treatment of the participants. Due to this study, the APA now requires that those conducting research submit paperwork to an Institutional Review Board (IRB) who reviews the plan of the study or experiment for possible violations of ethical guidelines. The IRB seeks to find a balance between adding to psychology while minimizing risks to participants.

While research is important to advance our understanding of psychological behavior, it is vital to conduct research studies ethically to reduce harm to the participants.

Role of Ethics in Psychological Research

Ethics in psychological research is essential for three reasons. It protects the participant(s) of the study, protects the researcher, and protects the reputation of the field of psychology. The IRB and the APA code of ethics are the first lines of defense for this protection; however, there are four basic principles for ethical studies. The four ethical principles in psychological research are beneficence, nonmaleficence, autonomy, and justice. Beneficence means that the researcher is working for the benefit of the person or the field of psychology. Nonmaleficence refers to "do no harm" and making sure to minimize the risks to the participant. Autonomy gives the researcher the power to make intelligent choices and decisions regarding how the study should go. Lastly, justice refers to the fair and equitable treatment of all participants of the study.