IB Ethics and Psychology

            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.