Lesson Notes
Lesson 1.3a The Scientific Method: A Way of Discovering
In this lesson you will walk through the six steps involved in the scientific method. Notice how the cycle of the scientific method never ends. Even after you conduct your research, there are always new discoveries to be made. You will learn the purpose of a hypothesis and how it is your guide to selecting a research method and method of collecting data. Most importantly, you need to understand that effective research never misses a step…each step is a necessary component to the scientific method.
Following the scientific method is important to psychology for many reasons, but above all, it is important because it gives legitimacy to the field. Without following strict scientific methods, psychology would be much like pseudopsychology. The scientific method gives psychologists structure and direction and this allows psychologists to focus on the four goals of psychology.
Lesson 1.3b Ethical Guidelines: Protecting the Rights of Others
Ethics are the guiding principles that all psychological researchers must follow. This Code of Ethics ensures that participants or subjects will be respected and be safe from any possible harm.
Historically speaking, the need for a Code of Ethics gained prominence after the atrocities of WWII and the Holocaust. In 1963, psychologist Stanley Milgram ran his famous experiment on Obedience. Milgram’s experiment had ordinary people administer lethal shock to a subject when directed by a person in a white lab coat. The results from his experiment were, no pun attended, shocking. Many of the subjects who administered the shock suffered psychological breakdowns. These results led the American Psychological Association (APA) to formulate a standardized Code of Ethics. We will read about this experiment in Chapter 16: Social Psychology.
The Three Basic Ethical Principles
The following are three ethical principles that should guide research on humans:
a. Beneficence – maximizing good outcomes and avoiding unnecessary risk
b. Respect – concern for autonomy of persons and courtesy
c. Justice – fair procedures and fair distribution of coasts and benefits
These three basic principles translate into six norms of scientific behaviour:
1. Valid research design: Only valid research yields correct results. Valid research takes into account relevant theory, methods, and prior findings.
2. Competence of researcher: Even well-designed research may yield invalid results or cause harm if the researcher is inadequately supervised or insufficiently qualified.
3. Identification of consequences: Possible risks and benefits should be identified and considered before the research is conducted.
4. Selection of subjects: The population sampled should (a) be appropriate to the purposes of the study, (b) be the one that benefits from the research, and (c) not include persons having very limited power and autonomy.
5. Voluntary informed consent: Voluntary informed consent of subjects should be obtained beforehand. Voluntary means freely, without threat or undue pressure. Informed means that subjects know what reasonable persons in that situation would want to know before giving consent. Consent means explicit agreement to participate. Informed consent requires clear communication that subjects comprehend, not complex technical explanations or legal jargon.
6. Compensation for injury: The researcher is responsible for what happens to subjects and should compensate them for injury.