Chapter 3

Ethics in Social Research

• Ethics guide behavior and decisions• Ethics guide us through a range of

concerns, dilemmas, and conflicts• Social researchers have a clear moral

– And professional obligation to behave in an ethical manner

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What are Research Ethics?

Why Be Ethical?

• Scientific community demands ethical behavior without exceptions

• Scientific misconduct– Research fraud– Plagiarism

• Unethical but legal

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Figure 3.1: Typology of Legal andMoral Actions in Social Research

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Expansion Box 3.1: Informed Consent

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Ethical Issues Involving Research Participants

• Origins of Research Participant Protection– Tuskegee Syphilis Study

• Physical Harm, Psychological Abuse, and Legal Jeopardy– Physical Harm– Psychological Abuse, Stress, or Loss of Self-

Esteem

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– Legal Harm• Other Harm to Participants• Deception

– Principle of voluntary consent• Informed Consent• Special Populations and New Inequalities

– Avoid Creating New Inequalities

Ethical Issues Involving Research Participants

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Ethical Issues Involving Research Participants

• Privacy, Anonymity, and Confidentiality– Privacy– Anonymity– Confidentiality– Information as property

• Mandated Protections– National Research Act (1974)

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Ethical Issues Involving Research Participants

– Institutional review board• Three Ethical Controversies

– Milgram’s obedience study– Humphreys’s tearoom trade study– Zimbardo’s prison experiment

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Research Precautions

• Consult with mental health professionals & others who have conducted similar studies

• Screen out high-risk populations• Obtain written informed consent (to be

discussed) before the research• Monitor conditions & arrange emergency

interventions if dangerous situations arise

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Nuremberg Code

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Expansion Box 3.2: Basic Principles of Ethical Social Research

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• Whistle-blowing• Arriving at particular findings• Limits on how to conduct studies• Suppressing findings• Concealing sponsorship

Ethics and the Sponsors of Research

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Politics of Research

• Limits to what is studied• Objectivity and value freedom

– Objective– Value free– Unbiased

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Expansion Box 3.3: What Is Public Sociology?