From your knowledge of the ethical issues involved in social influence research, to what extent can such research be justified?
Psychology
“For some social influence research has been ethically indefensible, yet for others it has been described as having great moral significance”.
From your knowledge of the ethical issues involved in social influence research, to what extent can such research be justified?
The need for ethical control leads to the establishment of a set of rules or guidelines which can be used to judge the acceptableness of behaviour.
It can be argued that there are fewer ethical issues with natural experiments than there are fewer ethical issues with natural experiments than with many other kinds of research. The reason is that the experimenter is not responsible for the fact that the participants have been exposed to the independent variable. However, natural experiments can raise various ethical issues. First, there can be the question of voluntary informed consent, in view of the fact that, the participants are often not aware that they are taking part in an experiment. Second, experiments carrying out natural experiments need to be sensitive to the situation in which the participants find themselves. People who have been exposed to a natural disaster such as a volcanic eruption may resent it if experimenters start asking them detailed questions about their mental health or psychological well being.
