Ethical Issues and Guidelines in Psychology

What are the right ways to behave and the right ways to treat other people? Ethics are the rules and guidelines that we use to make judgements of right and wrong. Psychologists have to consider ethical issues because they deal with people and study their behaviour on a daily basis. The study of ethics is one of the more difficult areas of psychology because there are no clear answers. That might well make it one of the more interesting areas for you, or one of the most frustrating. In this book we offer you the opportunity to develop and express your own opinion in relation to ethics in psychology. The book explains some key ethical issues and reviews the various ethical principles and guidelines developed by professional bodies. The problems relating to different kinds of research are discussed, as well as the special case of socially sensitive research. Finally the question of the use of animals in research is examined - is it useful and is it right to use non-human animals in psychological research?