Examples Of Ethical Issues In Psychology

As human beings, we are taught right and wrong from the time we are born. Parents teach their children not to touch a hot stove, not to call other children names, not to do “this,” not to do “that,” etc. Adults also experience being told what to do and what not to do in their jobs and careers. Specifically, psychologists are expected to be moral and ethical during their practices. However, some controversies regarding ethical issues appear in the field of psychology. The definition of ethics is often summarized by “morality” (Banyard). Historical evidence and specific patients provide examples of ethical issues, describe problems in the field of psychology, and constitute preventions in order to fix them. Early professionals and psychologists …show more content…
Ethical Issues in Psychology describes the definition of informed consent by stating, “…informed consent, which refers to the idea that any participant in an experiment should be informed about what the research entails and asked formally to consent to take part” (Banyard). In Nazi Germany, doctors during the Second World War experimented on prisoners without informed consent (Banyard). The patients were tested on by using diseases that were fatal and with extreme temperatures (Banyard). This lead to the 10-point code of ethics called the Nuremburg Codes of 1946 (Banyard). If it weren’t for this unfortunate event in history, patients in the medical field would still receive unethical and unfair personal …show more content…
Social psychologists say that “obedience to authority is a social influence” (). Generally speaking, we tend to listen and obey people that are “higher” than us. This includes individuals such as parents, bosses, doctors, and judges. A patient who demonstrated the obedience to doctors and psychologists was Henry Molaison. “HM”, as Henry was referred to, had seizures due to a brain injury (Banyard). He had a surgery to remove part of his temporal lobe and had anterograde amnesia after the surgery, meaning that he could not form new memories (Banyard). Many doctors did research on HM and had to re-introduce themselves to him (). They used electric shock and white noise (Banyard). How could he give consent if he couldn’t form new memories? This is just one example of how ethical issues in psychological research developed. Issues involving psychological research and therapy of humans stemmed from problems within the field. Imagine walking into a room and not knowing what was going to happen. This was the case for many patients. How would a patient feel knowing that they could potentially be harmed or deceived? Two problematic issues of psychology are that some doctors and therapists deceive their patients by not communicating with them and that the patient does not give informed consent to being harmed (Banyard). Such problems have been resolved over time through new moral principles, but others still remain an