 Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem. As-salamu alaikum. I am Professor Dr. Amina Mausam, Chairperson Department of Applied Psychology, Lahore College for Women University. I have did my PhD from University of Punjab Department of Applied Psychology and I am involved actively in research and training and mentoring of PhD scholars. While being the part of research, I have seen that there are many ethical issues concerned in the field of research related to psychology. So here today, I am facilitating you for the course which is named as Ethical Issues in Psychology. First of all, I would like to brief you what are being called ethics. From the beginning of our life, we are intended to see about anything in our life that what is going around us is either right or either wrong. We have been trained in a way to see connotation of life in a way which is being considered appropriate or unappropriate. While looking into the ethics, it could be broadened towards the whole sphere of human life. Now specifically looking at ethics these are those moral and philosophical systems which are embedded in us and they are particularly focused on the concept of right and wrong. This is not only related to the human life, in fact, in every aspect of our religion, our society's ethical and moral values, it shows us this code of conduct in different forms everywhere. Basically, our human competency believes in the fact that whatever we are doing, we believe in the fact that it is happening in the right or wrong way. And until we understand this process, if we do not understand this process, then we cannot give the result in the right way. Similarly, our professional values are the foundation of any profession and it is also very important to understand this system that any work is done professionally in the correct way. In the field of psychology, we all, as a student of psychology, as a mentor of psychology, are well aware of a concept and an organization, American Psychological Association. American Psychological Association's ethical principle of psychologists and code of conduct includes sections on different things, which includes clinical practice, education, research and publication. Now you see a time as such that at that time, no ethics existed. And by the time I felt the need for this thing, how we will ensure that something is going well in clinical practice, how we will see in education how we have to choose a mentor, how we have to take guidance, how we have to mentor the student in supervisor. In clinical competence, at what stage we have to appropriate referrals, where a clinician needs to be very carefully monitored in their dealing with a client that he is not being personal. So in a layman term, we understood these things. But APA made a proper ethical code of conduct through which it was ensured that who we are giving our publication credit due, if it's a supervisor, if it's a student, if it's a co-publisher, then who we will give the right due to. So we will talk about these things in detail in the future. But to see that the risk-benefit-based ratio in research, to see either we are going to harm any participant or not in this research, so this ethical code of conduct was very important, which is being done by APA. Now looking at specifically code of ethics, APA's ethical principle and code of conduct provide a common set of principles and standards. You know, the world is expanding, the research is expanding, the teaching is expanding, the clinical practice has been evolved over the years. And we just can't say that we will use one principle and one rule in different places according to the culture, according to the norms we use. Yes, we can do certain changes, but the basic, the very core principle of the ethics could not be changed. Like where we have to execute this thing in some way, we can't change this thing with our own will. There should be some proper grading system, there should be some proper evaluation system, there should be some process which is going to be very functional in a subtle manner for all the participants. So the code of ethics was very pivotal for us to be implemented. Ethics code and principle applies only to psychologist activities that are a part of their scientific, educational, and professional roles as psychologists. Meaning to say, Maybe we may be having to see something else, but when we talk about psychology, we are very much concerned that psychologists are for their stake, for their psychology community's stake, and for their psychology's discipline to ensure that they incorporate these principles in their profession in a better way. Now moving towards a step ahead, under the term of its charter, APA maintains a code of ethics and conduct which are updated regularly. Now why it is important that once they have been designed and now we are going to see that it's related to be, you know, upgradation after every back and forth time. Yes, it's very much important because, you know, the societies are changing, the norms are changing, the cultures are changing. Let me give you an example for that. Selfie disorder is there, you know? So these things didn't exist for 20 years from today. Now when we have to research on these topics, when we have to research on these areas, we need to update these code of ethics that where we can define the fine line between just a trait, an issue, a fashion, a norm, or a disorder. Right? In formulating this code, existing codes, society guidance, and changes in societal expectations of profession were considered. Because there was no such facility of internet, today society expects that every brilliant student will use the internet. So if we just restrict the usage of the internet to make a policy of it, then maybe it would be very difficult for us to ethically see that from where we start the fine line of disorder and where we are generally looking at children's aptitude. So, you know, according to society's expectations, rules to update is very much of pivotal importance. Now, goals of ethics in psychology. Ethics to have working areas could tap career. That is very much, you know, important to understand. Welfare and protection of individuals and groups with whom psychologists work. Very limited research in the beginning, which was being done on animals. So, it's very important to look after their stakes. If we are going to provide them any, you know, incentive, if you are going to provide them any intervention, any treatment, briefly giving you an example of hepatitis C virus treatment. Pakistan is currently a third leading country. And here, hepatitis C virus has different treatments. First, here is a treatment called a ribovirin regime. Then, salt, interferones. And then, their combination. And finally, after 20 years of research, the researchers get to know how much side effects they have. And they are again going back towards the ribovirin regime and interferones. So, interferones is again the popular one from where we started. And then, we move towards different treatments. And finally, we are going back to one. Now, in all these processes, it's very important to see and identify the risk-benefit ratio which is being given to the participants. Otherwise, if we don't look at this treatment for their welfare, then there would be certain issues. Similarly, if we look at vaccinations, education of members, students and public regarding ethical standards of the principle. Now, if we don't educate people about certain rules and principles, then we won't be able to tell them how to upgrade certain things with time. Now, another reason is to provide a framework for guiding the decision-making for all psychologists. How do we take a unanimous decision to implement something across the world? Right? And then, this framework allows sufficient flexibility for a variety of approaches according to their contacts, according to their culture, using different methods. And it reflects ethical standards applied to all. Like, we can change this culture-wise, but we won't touch the basic principles. Now, acting ethically can be affected by a number of individuals and groups, individuals as well as contacts. In this, we have to see confirmative resistance, peer-influence, contextual background, power, emotions of the participants, rule of social norms, organizational pressure, and group identity. We will discuss all of this in detail. As psychologists, we are very well aware of the fact that the importance of context and character both are affecting the behavior. Code of ethics therefore encourage all the psychologists to be mindful to their strengths and weaknesses in order that they are able to behave in most ethical ways. So, it's very much important that we understand that a psychologist has to follow ethics in overall practice, how mandatory and important it is.