# Research Ethics

Psychology I · Research Techniques · https://tryals.app/learn/psychology-i/research-ethics

## Core Ethical Protections

Modern research ethics protect participants through strict standards born from historical failures. **Informed consent** requires that participants understand a study's purpose, risks, and benefits before agreeing.

Participants always retain the **right to withdraw** at any point without penalty. **Confidentiality** protects data from outside linkage to identities, while **anonymity** means even researchers cannot link data to a person.

| Protection | Definition |
| --- | --- |
| **Informed Consent** | Prior agreement based on full understanding |
| **Right to Withdraw** | Freedom to exit at any time without penalty |
| **Confidentiality** | Data kept safe from outside identification |
| **Anonymity** | Complete separation of data from identity |

## Deception, IRB, and Belmont

**Deception** is only permitted when scientifically justified, lacking a non-deceptive alternative, and involving minimal risk. It demands **debriefing**—fully explaining the true purpose afterward.

Every study needs approval from an **Institutional Review Board (IRB)** before data collection begins.

| Belmont Principle | Requirement |
| --- | --- |
| **Respect for Persons** | Autonomous treatment, consent |
| **Beneficence** | Maximize benefits, minimize harm |
| **Justice** | Fair distribution of risks/benefits |

> **Common pitfall:** Assuming debriefing alone justifies deception. It must also meet strict necessity and minimal-risk criteria beforehand.

## Practice questions

7 of this lesson's 12 practice questions, with answers. The full set is in the app.

### 1. Select every statement that is TRUE about research ethics.

A. Participants may withdraw at any point without penalty.
B. The IRB reviews a study before any data is collected.
C. Anonymity means not even the researchers can link data to a person.
D. Debriefing by itself retroactively justifies any deception.
E. The Belmont Report's three principles are respect for persons, beneficence, and justice.

**Answer:** A. Participants may withdraw at any point without penalty.; B. The IRB reviews a study before any data is collected.; C. Anonymity means not even the researchers can link data to a person.; E. The Belmont Report's three principles are respect for persons, beneficence, and justice.

**Why:** The right to withdraw, the meaning of anonymity, prior IRB review, and the three Belmont principles are all true. Debriefing does NOT retroactively justify any deception - it is required but not sufficient, which is the one false option.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/psychology-i/research-ethics/select-every-statement-that-is-true-about-research-ethics

### 2. Research with children requires a parent's consent **and** the child's assent. Why insist on both when the parent can legally decide?

A. Because assent has the same legal standing as consent for older children
B. Because it protects the researcher from later legal challenge by the child
C. Because legal authority and willingness are different things
D. Because parents cannot understand research protocols reliably

**Answer:** C. Because legal authority and willingness are different things

**Why:** The parent can permit and cannot volunteer someone else's willingness. Assent gives the child a veto they can actually exercise, and its practical force is that visible distress ends the session regardless of the signature on the form.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/psychology-i/research-ethics/research-with-children-requires-a-parents-consent-and-the-childs

### 3. Milgram's study required participants to believe they were administering real shocks; telling them the truth in advance would have destroyed the phenomenon being studied. Why does that necessity not settle the ethical question by itself?

A. Because deception is never permissible in research.
B. Because committees judge studies by their results.
C. Because necessity shows only that it cannot be run honestly.
D. Because it could have been run with informed participants.

**Answer:** C. Because necessity shows only that it cannot be run honestly.

**Why:** The argument from necessity answers a question nobody asked: granting the phenomenon disappears under disclosure, what follows is two options — deceive, or do not run it — and the ethical work is choosing. Milgram debriefed carefully and his participants were still exposed to severe distress, which is a harm they could not have anticipated when they agreed.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/psychology-i/research-ethics/milgrams-study-required-participants-to-believe-they-were

### 4. Order the stages of ethical oversight for a deceptive study, from the earliest to the last.

**Answer:**

1. The researcher submits a protocol setting out the deception and its justification.
2. A review board weighs the scientific value against the risk to participants.
3. Participants consent to take part, without being told the study's real aim.
4. The study runs, with the right to withdraw available at any point.
5. Participants are debriefed, told the true purpose, and offered the removal of their data.

**Why:** The order encodes the whole logic of how deception is made defensible. Independent review comes before any participant is approached, because a researcher committed to their own study is the wrong person to weigh its risks. Consent still happens even though it cannot be fully informed - participants agree to take part, and retain the right to stop.

Debriefing is last and is not a formality. It is where the participant finally receives what consent could not give them in advance, and where the offer to withdraw their data restores the choice the deception removed. A deceptive study without a genuine debrief has not delayed consent; it has dispensed with it.

Milgram is again the reference case, and the ordering shows what he did and did not do. He debriefed thoroughly and followed participants up for a year. What did not exist in 1961 was the second step - an independent board with the power to say no before the first participant arrived.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/psychology-i/research-ethics/order-the-stages-of-ethical-oversight-for-a-deceptive-study-from-the

### 5. Obtaining a signed consent form is enough to make a study ethical, even if the IRB never reviewed it and participants were not allowed to withdraw.

**Answer:** False

**Why:** False. Consent is necessary but not sufficient - ethical research also requires the right to withdraw, prior IRB review, minimized harm, and more. Treating a signature as a complete ethical guarantee ignores the rest of the protections.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/psychology-i/research-ethics/obtaining-a-signed-consent-form-is-enough-to-make-a-study-ethical

### 6. Sort each item by whether it is an ethical protection for participants or a genuine violation.

**Answer:**

- Ethical protection: Explaining a study's purpose, risks, and benefits before enrollment, Letting a participant stop at any time without penalty, IRB review of risks before any data is collected
- Ethical violation: Publishing data in a way that identifies participants by name, Using unjustified deception with no debriefing afterward

**Why:** Informed consent, the right to withdraw, and IRB review are protections; identifying participants publicly and unjustified undebriefed deception are violations. Ethics is the presence of these safeguards, not merely the absence of obvious cruelty.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/psychology-i/research-ethics/sort-each-item-by-whether-it-is-an-ethical-protection-for

### 7. A study promises confidentiality: the researchers know who said what but will not disclose it. Another promises anonymity: nobody, including the researchers, can link a response to a person. Why does the difference matter for what a participant is actually risking?

A. Because confidentiality applies to published reports and anonymity applies to raw data, so they cover different stages.
B. Because confidentiality is a weaker ethical standard that review boards no longer accept.
C. Because confidentiality keeps a link that anonymity never creates.
D. Because anonymous data cannot be analysed statistically, so the two are used for different kinds of study.

**Answer:** C. Because confidentiality keeps a link that anonymity never creates.

**Why:** Confidentiality is an undertaking about behaviour — the key exists and can be subpoenaed, stolen or carried out by a departing lab member — where anonymity removes the possibility rather than promising against it. Longitudinal work must keep a link, and the honest position there is to promise confidentiality and secure it, not to call it anonymity.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/psychology-i/research-ethics/a-study-promises-confidentiality-the-researchers-know-who-said-what