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APA Ethical Guidelines Essay

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The APA ethical guidelines help to ensure that all psychological research maintains the integrity that it does not do harm or conflicts with the majority of the human populations moral ethical codes. However, in some situations the APA ethical guidelines must be viewed as just that: guidelines. If a study has the potential to benefit humanity as a whole and does not result in the permanent or irreparable harm to a human being then some guidelines must be permitted to be stretched or even broken in the interest of human advancement and scientific progression. After all the goal and responsibility of a psychologist is to enhance our understanding of human behavior as well as to find ways to use this information to better society and humanity …show more content…

Informed consent most closely interrelates to the guideline of deception. Deception is possibly the most controversial and also the most important aspects of research in psychology. Deception occurs when the experimenter withholds information about the study or the true aim of the study. In psychological research, it is important to use the least amount of deception possible. In all cases the researcher must take careful consideration to the benefits of any deception. If deception is carried out the participant is likely to experience: a feeling of being uncomfortable, negative feelings towards the research, and suspicion of the research. However, sometimes deception is necessary for the researcher because if the participants understand the aim of the study they could act differently according to the aim of the study. For instance, in memory research the researcher can inform the aim of the study because the participants do not know what they will be asked to remember. The most adept method of compensating for any mandatory deception is in the debriefing. After the experiment is over, researchers are required to debrief the participants. The ultimate reason for debriefing is to allow the participants to leave the experiment without any stress. This also gives the experimenter a chance to go over any and all of the points where deception might have been used and to

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