preview

Ethics In Psychology

Decent Essays

The code of ethics is very important through-out all aspects of psychology. Without ethical guidelines psychology would be completely different from what we know it to be. These guidelines protect the rights of all participants, so without guidelines participants would have no rights or protection during research. The researcher would be free to do as they please, as they don’t have any ethical guidelines to consider.

There has been many researchers who haven't followed any ethical guidelines during their work, but at the time this was seen as the norm by the majority of society. It was acceptable for researchers to carry out experiments which go against every ethical guideline that we have today, this was because ethics did not exist. People …show more content…

Watson actually respected the confidentiality and privacy of little Albert to an extent, as Watson replaced the little boys real name with ‘Albert’ however, he completely disregarded this by videoing the experiment and publishing it, which meant that little Alberts identity was shown to the world. Little Albert was also suffering from medical issues, it should of been Watson's duty as a psychologists to examine the well-being of his participants, was little Albert the suitable participant for this experiment? it can be argues that Albert was not the correct child. Watson also put Albert through a lot of stress and fear, he created a phobia by using classical conditioning on an emotionally stable child and little Albert was not protected for psychological harm.When it was time to give little Albert back to his mother, Watson did not explain to her what had took place. Alberts mother was completely unaware of what had went on behind closed doors. Little Albert who had a phobia of anything which resembled a rat, by the conditions Watson put him through, was simply handed back to his mother. Watson also did not try to cure Albert from this phobia that he had created, as Alberts mother withdrew him from the experiment. This could have affect Alberts well being in the future. Little Albert was not given the right to withdraw from the experiment, it would be impossible to

Get Access