2.5 Summary

• Psychologists have a duty of care towards participants and must ensure that their wellbeing is preserved throughout a study.
• Participants must be asked to give informed consent before taking part in research and have a right to withdraw at any point.
• Milgram’s obedience studies kick-started an ethics debate in psychology and highlighted the need for the development of more stringent guidelines for the conduct of research psychologists.
• Although Milgram’s obedience study was judged to be ethical at the time of publication, it would be in violation of the strict ethics guidelines in place today.