Psychology at Sweet Briar

 

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THE RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF RESEARCH PARTICIPANTS

Students performing psychological research have an ethical obligation to (a) respect the rights of their research participants (i.e., subjects) and to (b) communicate their responsibilities to them. The following outline (taken directly from Korn, 1989) describes these rights and responsibilities of research participants.

A. The Rights of Research Participants

1. Participants should know the general purpose of the study and what they will be expected to do. Beyond this, they should be told everything a reasonable person would want to know in order to decide whether to participate.

2. Participants have the right to withdraw from a study at any time after beginning participation in the research. A participant who chooses to withdraw has the right to receive whatever benefits were promised.

3. Participants should expect to receive benefits that outweigh the costs or risks involved. To achieve the educational benefit, participants have the right to ask questions and to receive clear, honest answers. When participants do not receive what was promised, they have the right to remove their data from the study.

4. Participants have the right to expect that anything done or said during their participation in a study will remain anonymous and confidential, unless they specifically agree to give up this right.

5. Participants have the right to decline to participate in any study and may not be coerced into research. When learning about research is a course requirement, an equivalent alternative to participation should be available.

6. Participants have a right to know when they have been deceived in a study and why the deception was used. If the deception seems unreasonable, participants have the right to withhold their data.

7. When any of these rights is violated or participants object to anything about a study, they have the right and the responsibility to inform the appropriate university officials, including the chairman of the psychology department.

B. The Responsibilities of Research Participants

1. Participants have the responsibility to listen carefully to the experimenter and ask questions in order to understand the research.

2. Be on time for the research appointment.

3. Participants should take the research seriously and cooperate with the experimenter.

4. When the study has been completed, participants share the responsibility for understanding what happened.

5. Participants have the responsibility for honoring the researcher's request that they not discuss the study with anyone else who might be a participant.