When conducting psychology research, there are several important standards that must be observed in order to protect study participants. Ethics are a set of moral principles used to guide human behaviour. When these guidelines are breached, they become ethical issues. Nowadays the British Psychology Society (BPS) uses a set of ethical guidelines for all psychology experiments to be bound to. Most ethical problems in human research stem from the participant being typically in as much less powerful position then the experimenter. It follows that steps need to be taken to ensure that the participant is not placed in a powerless and vulnerable position.All participants must have the basic right in experiments to stop their involvement at any given point. Furthermore, they do not have to feel obliged to explain the basis on which they have decided to withdraw if they choose not to, and they may also insist the data they provided during the experiment should be destroyed.
