Research Deception in Behavioral Sciences

Question

Please use the attached powerpoint presentation for information about research deception in the behavoural sciences. No need to provide citations or references. Just write a few paragraphs (300 words) to critically evaluate research deception in the behavourial sciences.

Sample paper

Research Deception in Behavioral Sciences

Research refers to the process of gathering data on a specific subject or area of study on a systematic basis in order to increase knowledge and use that knowledge to arrive at new conclusions. Deception in research is regarded to be unethical. It includes misleading of participants either through omission of information such as purpose of research and deliberate misleading. In the recent years, there have been significant ethical advances such as professional developments in ethical codification and review. However, deception still continues to be a huge problem especially in areas of behavioral research that are based on psychology as the root discipline.

The issue of research deception in behavioral sciences has been attributed mainly to the general nature of the ethical standards that guide researchers on use of deceptive procedures. Due to this, researchers are left with very little ethical guidance as to what is morally acceptable.

There are three main ethical principles in social research; respect for persons, justice and beneficence. Deception uses acts of manipulation which means if a researcher is deceptive, the participants will not have informed consent. The researcher will be using the participants to further his agenda hence going against the first ethical principle.

When it comes to justice, deception will hinder fair treatment of participants due to the lack of transparency regarding the research. If a researcher uses a certain group of people who are considered vulnerable such as children since they are easy to manipulate, he violates the ethical standards that guide social research. Lastly, it would be morally wrong if harm was caused to subjects in a study due to research deception considering the rule of beneficence which emphasis on preventing harm.

Researchers must ensure that all participants are provided with all necessary information in order to consent to participation. This should be done in a timely manner so that anybody who is not comfortable has time to opt out of the study. In the case that deception must be used, there should be sufficient facts that this will cause very little or no harm to all involved. Research conducted without deception ensures better results, less harm to participants and makes way for any further research in future.

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