What are the Ethics of Research?
Research and Sociology
Code of Ethics
 Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association (CSAA)
 Statements of Professional Ethics published in 1994
 www.csaa.ca/structure/Code.htm
Examples from Code
 Organizing and initiating research
4. Codes of professional ethics arise from the need to protect
vulnerable or subordinate populations from harm incurred,
knowingly or unknowingly, by the intervention of researchers
into their lives and cultures. Sociologists and anthropologists
have a responsibility to respect the rights, and be concerned
with the welfare, of all the vulnerable and subordinate
populations affected by their work…
Examples continued…
 Protecting people in the research environment
12. Researchers must respect the rights of citizens to privacy,
confidentiality and anonymity, and not to be studied.
Researchers should make every effort to determine whether
those providing information wish to remain anonymous or to
receive recognition and then respect their wishes…
Examples continued…
 Informed consent
15. Researchers must not expose respondents to risk of
personal harm. Informed consent must be obtained when
the risks of research are greater than the risks of everyday
life…

Convert research and deception
20. Subjects should not be deceived if there is any reasonably
anticipated risk to the subjects or if the harm cannot be
offset or the extent of the harm be reasonably predicted.
Right to Know vs. Right to Privacy
 Does the right to know outweigh the right to privacy?
 Who has the right to make these types of judgments?
 The researcher is often the one who makes the critical ethical
decisions.
 Therefore, sociologists and other investigators bear the
responsibility for establishing clear and sensitive boundaries
for ethical scientific research.
Example: Zellner
 Sociologist William Zellner (1978) wanted to learn whether
fatal car crashes are sometimes suicides disguised as accidents
in order to protect family and friends.
 Or perhaps to collect otherwise unredeemable insurance
benefits.
 Potential acts of autocide
 Zellner found that research on automobile accidents in which
fatalities occur poses an ethical issue – the right to know
against the right to privacy
Zellner’s research
 Interview friends, co-workers, and family members of
deceased
 Looking for info to help him ascertain whether the deaths
were accidental or deliberate
 Told the people he approached that his goal was to contribute
to a reduction of future accidents by learning about the
emotional characteristics of accident victims.
 Made no mention of his suspicions of autocide (feared people
wouldn’t meet him)
Zellner’s conclusions
 Concluded that at least 12 percent of all fatal single-occupant
crashes are suicides
 Info could be valuable for society, since some of the probable
suicides actually killed or critically injured innocent
bystanders in the process
Ethical Questions of Zellner’s work
 Was the research unethical because he misrepresented the
motives of his study and failed to obtain his subjects’
informed consent?
 Was his deception justified by the social value of his findings?
Answers are not Apparent
 Appeared to have admirable motives
 Took great care in protecting confidentiality.
 Did not reveal names of suspected suicides to insurance
companies
 Did recommend that the insurance industry drop double
indemnity
Additional Ethical Issue
 The possibility of harm to those who were interviewed???
 Questions Zellner asked:
 If the deceased had “talked about suicide”
 If they had spoken of how “bad or useless” they were
 Could these questions have led people to guess the true
intentions of the research?
 Might the study have caused the bereaved to suspect suicide
– when before the survey they had accepted the deaths as
accidental?
Preserving Confidentiality
 Like journalists, sociologists occasionally find themselves
subject to questions from law enforcement authorities or to
legal threats because of knowledge they have gained in
conducting research and maintaining confidentiality.
 This situation raises profound ethical questions.
Russell Ogden
Simon Fraser University
 Conducted interviews with people involved with assisted
suicide or euthanasia among people with AIDS
 Coroner subpoenaed Ogden to identify his sources
 Ogden refused citing a promise of “absolute confidentiality”
 Initially found in contempt but later accepted a common law
argument that the communications between Ogden and his
participants were priviledged.
Neutrality and Politics in Research
 The ethical considerations of sociologists lie not only in the
methods they use but also in the way they interpret results.
 Weber recognized that personal values would influence the
questions that sociologists select for research.
 But under no conditions could a researcher allow his or her
personal feelings to influence the interpretation of data.
Value Neutrality
 Researchers have an ethical obligation to accept research
findings even when the data run counter to their own
personal views, to theoretically based explanations, or to
widely accepted beliefs.
 Some sociologist believed it is impossible and believe the
public should not accept research results at face value but
investigate the biases of the researchers.