ABSTRACT
Every undergraduate will be familiar with the need to observe a code of ethics when carrying out research in psychology. However, they may not always pay much attention to this code. It is tempting to see ethical concerns as peripheral to the real business of intellectual endeavour and empirical investigation, and ethics panels as party poopers and spoilsports. But ethics panels would not exist in a world where all researchers were as concerned for the welfare of their participants as for their research ratings. It is also easy for researchers to forget some of their basic responsibilities – notably, the reputation of their research institution, and, even more importantly, the reputation of their discipline.
