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IB DP Psychology — Concepts | SL & HL | Paper 1 / Paper 3
Learning Intentions By the end of this note, you will be able to:
- Define informed consent, confidentiality, deception, debriefing, and the right to withdraw using IB-aligned terminology.
- Explain why ethical standards exist in psychological research and what harms they are designed to prevent.
- Describe the role of institutional review boards and professional codes of ethics in regulating research practice.
- Evaluate the tension between scientific value and participant welfare using supporting and opposing research examples in ACAS format.
- Apply ethical concepts to a real-world research scenario from multiple psychological perspectives.
- Discuss the extent to which ethical guidelines limit or enhance the quality of psychological research.
- Analyse ethical issues in research using the concept areas of Responsibility, Bias, Causality, and Measurement.
Introduction & Context
Imagine you are a participant in a psychology study. You arrive at a university laboratory, sit down, and are told simply that the experiment involves "learning and memory." What you are not told is that you will be asked to administer what appear to be painful electric shocks to another person. You are not told that the other person is an actor. You are not told that the real purpose of the study is to see whether you will obey authority even when it conflicts with your conscience. Would you feel deceived? Would you feel harmed? Would you have agreed to participate if you had known the truth?
This is not a hypothetical scenario. It describes, in broad terms, the kind of research that was conducted in the mid-twentieth century — research that produced genuinely important findings about human behaviour, but that also caused real psychological distress to participants. The history of psychology is full of studies that pushed the boundaries of what is acceptable in the pursuit of knowledge. It is precisely because of these studies that the field developed formal ethical standards: a set of principles designed to protect the people who make psychological research possible.
Understanding ethical standards is not simply about memorising a list of rules. It is about grasping a fundamental tension at the heart of research: the tension between the value of knowledge and the rights of individuals. Every ethical guideline exists because someone, at some point, was harmed by its absence. Studying these standards means asking not just "what are the rules?" but "why do these rules exist, and what do they protect?"
🔍 Analogy — The Medical Trial Think of a doctor who wants to test a new drug. The drug might save thousands of lives — but it might also have dangerous side effects. No responsible medical system would allow the doctor to administer the drug to patients without their knowledge, without their consent, and without a plan to help them if something goes wrong. Psychology operates on exactly the same principle. The potential value of a finding does not justify exposing participants to harm, deception, or exploitation without proper safeguards in place.
Core Concepts
Before any research study begins, there is a fundamental question that must be answered: does the person being studied know what they are agreeing to? This question seems obvious, but for much of psychology's early history it was not treated as a priority. Participants were sometimes recruited under false pretences, given incomplete information, or placed in situations they would never have agreed to enter had they been told the truth. The principle that emerged from this history is one of the most foundational in all of research ethics.
📖 Key Definition — Informed Consent Informed consent is the process by which a participant is given clear, accurate, and complete information about the nature, purpose, risks, and procedures of a study before agreeing to take part. Consent must be voluntary — free from coercion or undue pressure — and the participant must have the capacity to understand what they are agreeing to.
Informed consent serves two purposes simultaneously. First, it respects the