According to ethical guidelines in psychological research, which of the following is an unacceptable motivation for subjecting participants to risks such as pain, fear, or embarrassment?

Ethical guidelines dictate that psychologists may never subject participants to psychological risks, such as fear or embarrassment, regardless of the study's potential scientific value.

Match each research scenario with the ethical category that best describes the researcher's motivation or justification for the risks involved.

An Institutional Review Board (IRB) is evaluating three research proposals that each involve subjecting participants to significant embarrassment. Based on the ethical guidelines for research motivations, arrange these justifications in order from the least ethically justifiable (1) to the most ethically justifiable (3).

Suppose you are designing a psychological study that involves subjecting participants to significant social embarrassment. To ensure the study is ethically justifiable, which of the following 'Research Objectives' would you construct to move the study beyond personal curiosity and toward a substantial scientific contribution?

Match each factor of psychological research with the ethical role it plays according to the guidelines on research motivations.

An Institutional Review Board (IRB) reviews a study where participants are misled into believing they have failed an important test so the researcher can observe the facial expressions of disappointed people. The board rejects this proposal, noting that it is ethically unacceptable to subject participants to embarrassment solely to satisfy a researcher's _____.

According to psychological research ethics, obtaining informed consent from participants makes it ethically acceptable to subject them to mild fear or embarrassment, even if the study has no expected scientific or societal benefits and is driven solely by the researcher's curiosity.

Dr. Kim is personally fascinated by how people react to unexpected frights and wants to design a study where participants are suddenly exposed to a terrifyingly loud noise. Because this study subjects participants to fear, Dr. Kim is informed by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) that she cannot proceed with this research if her only motivation is to satisfy her own personal ____.

A researcher wants to study psychological distress but starts with a design driven entirely by personal curiosity. Arrange the steps the researcher should take to transition their project from an ethically unacceptable proposal to an ethically justifiable study, from first (1) to last (4).