Dr. Matthews has submitted a proposal to the institutional review board (IRB) of a university. At this university, she intends to conduct research on the socialization patterns of students from foreign countries. In the context of ethics guidelines, the IRB at the university will decide

The IRB at the university will decide whether her study meets ethical guidelines before it is initiated. The importance of these codes of conduct is to safeguard research participants, the status of psychology and the researchers or psychologists themselves. Moral issues hardly yield a simple, unequivocal, right or wrong answer. It is consequently often a matter of judgment whether the research is justified or not. For instance, it might be that a study roots psychological or physical uneasiness to participants, maybe they agonize pain or maybe even come to solemn harm.