Discuss the concept of informed consent. Include a discussion of the pros and cons related to the ...

Answer:
Answers should address the following points:
1) Informed consent is the practice of providing research participants as much information as possible about the procedures to be used in an experiment before the potential subjects decide whether or not to participate. Ideally, complete disclosure of the experimental procedures and expected results are given.
2) However, some research questions cannot be directly studied if the research participants know the true purpose of the experiment because that knowledge might have an effect on the participants' behavior and, thus, become a confounding factor in the experiment.
3) Therefore, deception is necessary in some cases to provide only partial or misleading information when obtaining informed consent from potential research participants.
4) This deception could possibly harm the research participants to some extent.
5) Most researchers believe that deception should only be used when other alternatives to gathering the desired information cannot be employed.
6) As soon as possible after the experiment ends, researchers should also provide research participants with a full debriefing that includes an explanation of any deception that was used and the reasons for that deception.
7) Evidence indicates that informed consent and debriefing reduces the potential dangers of deception in psychological research.
8) Evidence also indicates that the use of deception leaves research participants somewhat more skeptical and suspicious about future research they may participate in.