Don Honorio Ventura Technological State University

Bacolor, Pampanga

Jhan Philip Mercado Jan 9, 2018

CJay Manalang Ms. Sherna Bangalan

Ethics

Ethics express the professional values foundational to the profession. In psychology,

APA’s Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct includes sections on clinical
practice, education, research and publication.
APA's Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct “provides a common set of
principles and standards upon which psychologists build their professional and scientific
work… It has as its goals the welfare and protection of the individuals and groups with
whom psychologists work and the education of members, students, and the public
regarding ethical standards of the discipline.”

Debrief
After the research is over the participant should be able to discuss the procedure
and the findings with the psychologist. They must be given a general idea of what the
researcher was investigating and why, and their part in the research should be explained.

Participants must be told if they have been deceived and given reasons why. They
must be asked if they have any questions and those questions should be answered honestly
and as fully as possible.

Debriefing should take place as soon as possible and be as full as possible; experimenters
should take reasonable steps to ensure that participants understand debriefing.

“The purpose of debriefing is to remove any misconceptions and anxieties that the
participants have about the research and to leave them with a sense of dignity, knowledge,
and a perception of time not wasted” (Harris, 1998).

The aim of the debriefing is not just to provide information, but to help the participant
leave the experimental situation in a similar frame of mind as when he/she entered it
(Aronson, 1988).
 Piliavin et al. (1969)
Good Samaritanism: An Underground Phenomenon?

Background and Aim: After Kitty Genovese’s murder in New York, Darley and Latané
(1968) and Latané and Rodin (1969) conducted a series of experiments that introduced the
theory of “bystander apathy” because of the “diffusion of responsibility”. In other
words, a negative event, such as a public attack on a person or a person falling ill on the
street and collapsing and needing help, was less likely to result in such help being given if
there were many witnesses than if there were few. In fact the fewer the witnesses,
the more help was given. If many people saw an attack, for example, each one was likely to
believe that others had already called for help, were assisting, or had decided it was not an
emergency situation. Anyway, the result was the same: inaction.

Many of these studies were conducted in the laboratory. Piliavin et al.’s study moved the
research into the field. The aim of this study was to conduct a field experiment to
investigate the effect of several different variables on who responded to help, the speed of
responding and the likelihood of responding. The main focus of the research was to
investigate the effect of the type of victim (drunk or ill) and the ethnicity of victim (black
or white) on the speed and frequency of the response and the ethnicity of the responder.

Piliavin et al, a field experiment. This research violated the code of ethics [Debriefing], the
participants of that study did not received debriefing

The study can be criticised on ethical grounds. A problem with the field
experiment is that the participants cannot give their consent, because they do not
know that they are participants in an experiment. Similarly the participants are
being deceived because they are unaware that it is not a genuine emergency.
Participants were also not debriefed as this would have been almost impossible.
Following from this it is possible that participants had feelings of guilt, distress,
and anxiety.