Ethics is a system of rules and principles of conduct.  Responses to a questionnaire being publicly discussed or two people being watched without their knowledge or permission would be two examples of breached ethics.  The British Psychological Society (BPS) has issued guidelines of conduct, along with their American counterparts the American Psychological Association (APA).  Although regulations have been implemented for the first hand participant, neither of these two institutions provide for extended groups associated to the participants, for example friends or family.  The principles outlined by these two bodies must be adhered to when conducting psychological research to avoid inflicting physical or psychological consequences on investigators or participants.  All participants fall into some type of category, for instance they could be young, old, male, and female or from an ethnic group.  All of whom need protection.  One such study that aroused controversy and was heavily criticised on ethics was Phillip Zimbardo’s prison experiment.  Zimbardo aimed to establish “What happens when you put good people in an evil place?  Does humanity win over evil or will evil triumph?”

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In 1973 Stanford University, California transformed their basement into a fully functional prison.  For authenticity cells were created with CCTV, no windows or clocks were permitted.  Zimbardo was to participate by assuming the position of ‘Prison Superintendent’.  The volunteers were recruited through an advert in a newspaper offering $15.00 per day.  The 24 successful candidates were young male students which were given preliminary personality tests to judge their emotional stability.  This was an attempt to predict how the individual would conduct his behaviour while partaking in the experiment.  They were then divided equally into two groups, guards and prisoners.

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