Ethics are of utmost importance when doing research and later writing about it. There are many ways to get tripped up ethically in both research and writing. This chapter summarizes some of the pitfalls and gives you advice as to how to avoid them.

RESEARCH ISSUES

A number of ethical issues arise in psychological research (as well as in medical and other research). Some of the main issues involve deception, pain, the ethics of research on animals, and confidentiality.

Deception

Sometimes, for research to work, participants must be kept unaware of the purpose of the research until it is completed. In some cases, however, psychologists have used extreme forms of deception. Stanley Milgram (1974) led participants to believe that they were delivering painful electric shocks to another person, when in fact they were not. When Milgram carried out his studies, researchers were generally not required to obtain advance approval of their plans to conduct a psychological investigation. Another ethical issue arises when researchers pay participants to indulge in a vice, as when researchers pay alcoholics to drink to study their drinking behavior. Today, deception is permitted in research only when the benefits clearly outweigh the costs.