CHAPTER 3
THE ETHICS AND POLITICS OF
SOCIAL RESEARCH.
CONSTRAITS ON RESEARCH
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1.
2.
3.
4.
SCIENTIFIC
ADMINISTRATIVE
ETHICAL
POLITICAL
ETHICAL CONSIDERATION
 What does ethics deal with?
 - A study that requires small children
to be tortured, is that ethical?
 What is “moral”- is based on social
agreement among members in a
group/nation/country etc
 1. Voluntary Participation:
Research, often enough, requires
intrusion into people’s personal lives,
questions about personal information.
Participation should therefore be
voluntary, no one should be forced to
participate.
 Voluntary Participation makes
scientific research difficult- how?
 Affects the kind of sample you get,
and thus the ability to generalize to
everyone in the population
 The “norm” of voluntary participation
must be observed, when not
observed it is important you observe
other norms like no harm to subjects
etc.
 2. No harm to participants:
Information gathered about participants
might harm their work life, family life
or relationships, and their personal
psychological well being therefore
make sure that there is no harm
coming to participants from your
research.
 Informed Consent: Subjects must
base their voluntary participation on a
full understanding of the risks
involved.
 i.e. they are required to sign a
statement that they understand the
risks involved but want to participate
anyway.
 Based on their responses to the
questions answered, certain
participants might be smart enough
to locate themselves in the tables and
figures of the published study which
might threaten their self image
 How does modern research guard
against this:
 Human subject committees in
universities
 Funding agencies require independent
evaluation of the effects of research
on human subjects.
 3. Anonymity and Confidentiality
 A. Anonymity: When the researcher as well
as the people who read the research cannot
identify a given response with a given
respondent
 Can an interview survey be anonymous?
 IS a mail survey anonymous?
 Does anonymity ensure accuracy of
response? How so?
B. Confidentiality: A researcher can identify a
given respondents responses but promises not
to identify him or her publicly.
The responsibility here lies on whom?
The researcher or the researched?
Courts have not recognized social research to be
privileged communication.
Exxon oil spill, survey- Exxon subpoenaed survey
questionnaire
Remove identifiers from questionnaires as soon as
possible keeping a separate file/coding to
associate names with responses for research
purposes only
 4. no deception:
 -Revealing yourself to the researched
 -Scientific problems with such
identification? How can the data be
inaccurate? Asch experiment, Stanley
Milgram Experiment
 -There must be compelling reasons if you
do not identify yourself to the respondents.
 If you have to deceive the researched, they
must be debriefed at the end.
 5. Analysis and Reporting: researchers
have to honestly report technical
difficulties, limitations and failures of the
study and not conceal these to make it look
better. Negative findings as well as chance
findings should be reported
 Institutional Review Boards required at
universities that get Federal grants in USA.
ETHICAL CONTROVERSY
 Stanley Milgram experiment:
 How likely are people to inflict harm
on others following orders?
 Teacher, pupil, wrong answer
shocked…
POLITICS OF RESEARCH
 Ethical considerations deal with the
“how” to conduct research part.
Politics of research deals with the USE
of research and thus the substance of
the research findings.
 What can be some political
considerations of the Milgram
experiment?
 No specific rules on the political
aspects of research except
 1. No harm to the subject
 2. Researchers political orientation
should not cloud his or her researchthe idea of objectivity,
intersubjectivity.
Value-Free Research
 From Max Weber’s lecture- Science as a
Vocation (1925)
 “Disenchantment of the world”
 Personal values should not affect the
conduct of your research.
 Value-Free is itself a “Value” that
sometimes supports the status quo. Cannot
easily separate social science and social
action.
 Project Camelot: US government
Project Camelot
 1. Devise ways to assess the potential for
internal war
 2. Identify the steps the government might
take to relieve conditions that give rise to
internal conflict.
 Purpose: to strengthen established non
democratic regimes and thwart popular
reformist and revolutionary movements in
the developing world.