HOW TO REVIEW THE LITERATURE AND CONDUCT ETHICAL STUDIESSome researchers pay high personal costs for
being ethical. Although he was never accused
or convicted of breaking any law and he closely
followed the ethical principles outlined by the
American Sociological Association, Rik Scarce,
a doctoral sociology student at Washington State
University, spent 16 weeks in a Spokane jail for
contempt of court. He was jailed because he refused
to testify before a grand jury and break the confi-
dentiality of social research data. Scarce had been
studying radical animal liberation groups and had
already published one book on the subject. He had
interviewed a research participant who was sus-
pected of leading a group that had broken into ani-
mal facilities and caused $150,000 damage. Two
judges refused to acknowledge the confidentiality
of social research data.^23
Participants’ Information as Private Property.If
you freely give information about yourself for
research purposes, do you lose all rights to it? Can
it be used against you? Research participants have
knowledge about them taken and analyzed by
others. The information can then be used for a num-
ber of purposes, including actions against the sub-
jects’ interests. Large businesses collect, buy, sell,
analyze, and exchange information on people every-
day. Private businesses and government agencies
use information about buying habits, personal taste,
spending patterns, credit ratings, voting patterns,
Internet surfing, and the like. Information is a form
of private property. Like other “intellectual” prop-
erty (copyrights, software, patents, etc.) and unlike
most physical property, information continues to
have value after it is exchanged.
Most people give their time and information
to a researcher for little or no compensation, yet
concerns about privacy and the collection of infor-
mation make it reasonable to consider personal
information as private property. If it is private prop-
erty, a person clearly has the right to keep, sell, or
give it away. The ethical issue is strongest in situa-
tions in which someone could use the information
in ways that participants would disapprove of if they
were fully informed. For example, a group of com-
mitted nonsmokers participate in a study about their
habits and psychological profiles. A market research
firm obtains the information, and a tobacco com-
pany asks the market research firm to design a cam-
paign that promotes smoking to the nonsmokers.
Had the nonsmokers been informed about the uses
of their responses, they might have chosen not to
participate. Ethical researchers can increase protec-
tions by offering participants a copy of the findings
and describing all uses to which the information will
be put in an informed consent statement.
The issue of who controls data on research par-
ticipants is relevant to the approaches to social sci-
ence. Positivism implies the collection and use of
information by experts separate from research par-
ticipants and the ordinary citizen. Each of the two
alternatives to positivism in its own way argues for
the involvement and participation of those who are
studied in the research process and in the use of
research data and findings.^24Mandated Protections of Research Participants.
The U.S. federal government and governments of
other nations have regulations and laws to protect
research participants and their rights. In the United
States, the legal restraint is found in rules and reg-
ulations issued by the U.S. Department of Health
and Human Services Office for the Protection from
Research Risks. Although this is only one federal
agency, most researchers and other government
agencies look to it for guidance. Current U.S. gov-
ernment regulations evolved from Public Health
Service policies adopted in 1966 and expanded
in 1971. The National Research Act (1974) estab-
lished the National Commission for the Protection
of Human Subjects in Biomedical and Behavioral
Research, which significantly expanded regula-
tions, and required informed consent in most social
research. The responsibility for safeguarding ethi-
cal standards was assigned to research institutes
and universities. The Department of Health and
Human Services issued regulations in 1981 that
are still in force. Regulations on scientific miscon-
duct and protection of data confidentiality were
expanded in 1989.
Federal regulations follow a biomedical model
and protect subjects from physical harm. Other
rules require institutional review boards (IRBs)
at all research institutes, colleges, and universities