Ethics and Politics of Social Research

1. Ethics and Politics of Social Research Mary Cassatt: Breakfast in Bed, 1894.

2. Ethical Issues in Social Research • 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.

3. Ethical Issues in Social Research • 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.

4. Ethical Issues in Social Research • 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.

5. Ethical Issues in Social Research • 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.

6. Ethical Issues in Social Research • 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. • 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.

7. Ethical Issues in Social Research • 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

8. Ethical Issues in Social Research • 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.

9. Ethical Issues in Social Research • Professional Ethics • Reporting of findings. • Credit for findings. • Plagiarism.

10. The Politics of Social Research • Objectivity and Ideology • Verstehen: Value-free scientific inquiry. • Research and bias. • Racial, gender, political, religious. • The expert witness. • The Sociologist as Person • Basic research, applied research, and advocacy.