Ethics and Politics of Social Research

Mary Cassatt: Breakfast in Bed, 1894.

Ethical Issues in Social Research

1. Voluntary Participation

• Subjects must agree to reveal information about themselves.

• Subjects must be able to provide informed consent.

• Behavior observed in public settings is assumed to imply agreement to being observed.

• Subjects contacted after being observed in a public setting must be informed they were observed in a public setting.

Ethical Issues in Social Research

2. No Harm to Subjects

• Subjects must be free from reasonably anticipated physical or emotional harm.

• Subjects must be informed of the manifest content of the information they will be asked to reveal about themselves.

• It is permissible to deceive subjects, as long as the deception cannot be anticipated to create physical or emotional harm.

Ethical Issues in Social Research

3. Anonymity

• Both the researcher and the public cannot identify the subject.

• Anonymity often is not required during data collection, but sometimes is preferred.• The “double-blind” experiment.

• Typically, identifiers must be removed from the data after collection is complete.• The exception would be for longitudinal

data collection.

Ethical Issues in Social Research

4. Confidentiality

• The public cannot identify the subject.• Confidentiality nearly always is required.• Social scientists are mandatory reporters of

child abuse and capital crimes.• A Federal Certificate of Confidentiality can help

protect researchers from revealing the identity of subjects involved in criminal activities, except capital crimes.

Ethical Issues in Social Research

5. Deception: Identity of Researcher to Subjects• Sometimes, it can be important for researchers

to conceal their identity to subjects.• This type of deception can raise serious

concerns about informed consent.6. Deception: Identity of Research Purpose

• It is common in laboratory experiments to reveal the full nature of the research purpose.

• Debriefing involves informing subjects of full research purpose after data collection is completed.

Ethical Issues in Social Research

7. Institutional Review Boards• “Human Subject Committees” decide if

research is ethical.• Ethics is an evolving issue.• Learn more and take the test! Click here:

Guidelines for Human Subjects Research

Ethical Issues in Social Research

8. Required Elements for Consent• Purpose of study.• How respondent was selected.• Results will be used for research and [other].• Voluntary participation in the study or any part

of it.• Respondent can keep any incentives if they

withdraw from the study.• Confidentiality of responses.• Contact information of the researcher.

Ethical Issues in Social Research

9. Professional Ethics9. Reporting of findings.10.Credit for findings.11.Plagiarism.

The Politics of Social Research

1. Objectivity and Ideology• Verstehen: Value-free scientific inquiry.• Research and bias.

• Racial, gender, political, religious.• The expert witness.

2. The Sociologist as Person• Basic research, applied research, and

advocacy.