Perhaps
it could said that we consider the potential costs and benefits of our actions (in science).
Unlike, say medicine, psychology doesn’t have that same urgency that the field
of medicine has, for example, finding the cure to a dangerous disease that is
rapidly spreading from country to country. Psychology is perhaps more motivated
by the idea of discovery, because as humans, we want to know why we and other
people, choose to do the things we do. Of course, psychology does have numerous
practical applications, but as I said, millions of people won’t suddenly die if
certain discoveries aren’t made. As such, psychology experiments aren’t really
a matter of life of death, and so there is little motivation to do ethically
dubious experiments. To know more about us, and how our personalities work and
more is interesting, and it wouldn’t be in the spirit of science to not pursue
it, but because of the lack of urgency, we are able to place the balance of
interests a lot more in favour of the experimental subject, as to us, the
potential benefits and discoveries aren’t worth ‘playing’ with human lives.
Some
experiments require the subject to not have knowledge of it, as subjects can
act differently if they know they are being observed, especially on experiments
to do with ethical or taboo issues.
In
my personal opinion, I think that IB ethical guidelines for psychology are
adequate for the protection of subjects. Considering the fact that the IB is a
highschool diploma programme, it’s not like they are limiting future psychology
research with the rules either. Also, the IB ethical guidelines are quite
reasonable, making sure that the experiment is controlled (person doing
experiment must be fit of mind) and making sure the subject does not get hurt,
mentally or physically.
