Chapter 3: Ethical issues in social research

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Chapter 3 Ethical issues in social research

• Voluntary participation
• No harm to participants
• Tuskegee experiments
• Stanford Prison Experiment students assumed
  roles as prisoners guards
• Psychology classes
• Study of reporting behavior of HIV-positive
  population
• Informed consent subjects base their voluntary
  participation in research project with full
  understanding of risks involved

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Chapter 3 Ethical issues in social research

• Anonymity and Confidentiality
• Anonymity cannot identify a given respondent
• Confidentiality can identify a given respondent
  but promises not to do so
• Exxon Valdez survey
• WSU grad student Rik Scarce in jail for refusing
  to answer grand jurys questions that would have
  violated confidentiality
• Be carefulcourts dont see the promise as
  privileged information
• Remove ID information as soon as practicable

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Chapter 3 Ethical issues in social research, p.2

• Deception
• ex. study of AIDS reporting behavior (Univ. of
  Del.)
• ex. Tearoom Trade
• Researcher acted as watchqueen then recorded
  license plate numbers for follow-up through DMV
• ex. Milgrams human obedience (shock) study
• 2/3 of subjects continued through highest shock
  level
• Analysis and reporting responsibility to
  colleagues
• Institutional Review Boards (IRB)
• See exemption categories on pp 69-70 from Federal
  guidelines

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Political issues in social research

• Focus on substance and use of research
• Unlike ethical issues, no formal codes of
  acceptable political conduct
• Ideology must not violate objectivity
• No research is value-free
• But ideology cannot push the research process

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Four lessons regardingpolitical issues in social
research

• Science in NOT untouched by politics
• Science manages to proceed in the midst of
  political controversy hostility
• Awareness of ideological enriches the study and
  practice of social science methods
• Research must inform public debate
• FCC and research on JSAs