Research Ethics
Agenda
Objective:
1. To understand the ethical
obligations of researchers with
human subjects.
2. To understand the questionable
history of human subjects
research.
Schedule:
1. Intro to research ethics
2. History of research ethics
3. What are current research
ethics
4. Famous cases of ethical
controversy
5. IRB
Homework
1. Social Theory
Paper Due
Tuesday March
6
2. Midterm Exam
Friday March
30
Sociology and Research Ethics
• Sociologists conduct
research on human beings.
• Whether a study uses
interviews, participant
observation, surveys, or
existing statistics to gather
data this data always
comes from human beings.
• As a result, moral/ethical
issues must be considered
when designing a study
and collecting data.
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Research Ethics
• Ethics: Behaving in accordance with
accepted standards of right and wrong.
• Research ethics: Application of ethics to
the design, implementation, and
reporting of research.
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Research Ethics
• Research ethics involves a
balance between two values:
– The pursuit of scientific knowledge
and the rights of those being studied
• Potential benefits such as advancing of
our understanding of social life,
improving decision making, or helping
research participants must be weighed
against potential costs to the study
participants.
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The Origins of Research
Ethics
• Concern over the treatment of research
subjects arouse after the revelation of
gross violations of basic human rights in
the name of science.
• The most prominent examples
include…
Nazi Medical Experiments
• During World War Two the
Nazis conducted a series of
perverse medical
experiments on imprisoned
and interned Jews.
• For example, people were
placed in freezing water to
see how long it took them to
die, people were purposely
starved to death, and limbs
were severed from children
and transplanted onto other
individuals.
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Tuskegee Syphilis Study
• From 1932 until 1972 The United
States Public Health Service
conducted a clinical study in which
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they recruited 399 impoverished
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African-American men with
syphilis to research how the
disease progressed.
• By 1947 penicillin was accepted as an effective cure for the
disease yet researchers failed to treat patients, withheld all
information about penicillin treatment from patients and
prevented them from participating in any treatments for
venereal disease, and continued the study for another 25
years.
• Victims of the study included not only numerous men who died
of syphilis, but also their wives who contracted the disease,
and children born with congenital syphilis.
Project MK-ULTRA
• This CIA human research program
began in the early 1950s and continued
at least through the late 1960s. It
sought to examine methods of
influencing and controlling the human
mind in order to enhance the CIA’s
ability to extract information from
resistant subjects during interrogation.
• Often without their knowledge were given a range of mindaltering substances including LSD (which was used as an
experimental drug in these trials before it was used
recreationally) which caused serious physical and mental
trauma and in some instances permanent damage to
participants.
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– Some subjects’ participation was consensual and in these cases
participants were singled out for even more extreme experiments.
In one case, volunteers were given LSD for 77 straight days.
– Ken Kesey, author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, was a
voluntary participant in these trials while a student at Stanford.
Types of Unethical Research
• There are four main types of unethical
research:
1. Research that causes harm to participants
2. Research that is deceitful
3. Nonconsensual research
4. Research that does not protect subjects’
privacy
Research That Causes Harm
• Research should never harm a participant.
• This harm can include:
–Physical harm
•Injury
•Illness
•Death
–Psychological abuse
•Stress
•Embarrassment
•Anxiety
•Loss of Dignity/Self-Esteem
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–Legal Harm
•Risk of arrest
•Engagement in illegal activities
•Turning over data, notes, or interviews on subject to lead
to their arrest (?)
Research that is Deceitful
• Participants should never be lied to.
• Research should never be covert or
hidden from the participant.
• Participants should never be tricked into
agree to participate in a study.
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Nonconsensual Research
• The people who participate in social research
should explicitly agree to participate.
• It is not enough to get permission from
subjects; they need to know what they are
being asked to participate in so that they can
make an informed decision.
• They must sign and read
a statement giving
informed consent.
• Signed informed consent
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statements are optional
for most survey, field, and
secondary data research.
Research that Does Not Protect
Subjects’ Privacy
• Researchers must be sure to maintain a
participant’s privacy, anonymity, and
confidentiality at all times.
• For the most part studies should not:
– Use names and other
identifying details of
participants. They should be
changed to protect privacy.
– Release private information to
the public or to other
individuals or organizations.
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Three Famous Cases of
Ethical Controversy
• Laud Humphrey’s Tearoom Trade
(1970)
• Stanley Milgram’s “obedience
study” (1963)
• Philip Zimbardo’s “prison
experiment” (1973)
Tearoom Trade Discussion
• Reactions?
• What ethical concerns are present in
the study?
• Do you think Humphreys’ study was
unethical?
• What ethical research design could
Humphreys have employed to answer
his research question?
Stanley Milgram’s “Obedience
Study”
• Milgram attempted to discover how the
horrors of the Holocaust under the
Nazis could have occurred by
examining the strength of social
pressure to obey authority.
• The experiment, however, unleashed a
wave of ethical concerns.
• Watch and see…
Milgram Discussion
• Reactions?
• What was the purpose of the study?
What was Milgram trying to do?
• What ethical concerns are present in
the study?
• Was reproducing the study unethical?
Philip Zimbardo’s “Prison
Experiment”
• Zimbardo’s study set out to understand the social
interactions that take place between guards and
prisoners in prisons.
• To explore this he created a simulated prison in
which young male volunteers were randomly placed
as guards or prisoners to see how they interacted.
• Volunteers were paid $15/day for 2 weeks of
participation.
• They were told they would have some of their basic
civil rights suspended but that physical abuse was
explicitly prohibited.
• Watch and see what happened…
Zimbardo’s Study
• Reactions?
• What was unethical about this study?
• Why was this study unethical?
– Was it something in the study’s design?
– Was it an unintended (unforeseen) effect?
• Was Zimbardo’s behavior during the study
unethical? Why?
• Do you think that today Zimbardo believes
the study was unethical?
Mandated Protection of Subjects
• Today, the United States federal government
has regulations and laws to protect research
subjects and their rights.
• Under these laws the responsibility for
safeguarding ethical standards is assigned to
research institutes and universities.
• Any person doing research on a human
subject must submit a proposal and all
supporting documents for their
research study to an institutional
review board (IRB) which will
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determine if the research conforms
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to the standards laid out in federal
law.
• See Sample IRB Form!
Applying your Understanding
of Research Ethics
• Imagine you are interested in studying
underage teenagers’ drinking and driving
behaviors. What are some of the ethical
considerations you would have to keep in
mind? Discuss some of the ethical dilemmas
you would encounter. How would you
structure your research project (bearing in
mind the centrality of ethics in the structuring
of your research process)?