Ethical Issues in Social Influence Research

8 Key excerpts on "Ethical Issues in Social Influence Research"

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  Introducing Research Methodology

  Thinking Your Way Through Your Research Project

  • Uwe Flick(Author)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  3 Ethical Issues in Social Research

  How this chapter will help you

  You will:

  • see how ethical issues are involved in social research projects
  • develop your sensitivity to ethical questions in social research
  • appreciate the complexity of ethical considerations, and
  • be able to plan and conduct your research project within an ethical framework.

  In later chapters, we will consider the strengths and limitations of social research. There the main focus will be on methodological or technical limitations. We will consider in more detail such questions as: What can we grasp with one method, what is missed by it, and how can we overcome this by using several methods? We will also consider a more fundamental limitation, asking: When should you refrain from doing your research?

  This chapter, however, focuses on limitations to social research to keep in mind, though of a different sort. We explore such questions as: Which ethical problems should be taken into account in research? Which ethical boundaries are touched and how can you approach ethical issues in doing your social research project? As we shall see, these questions involve us in some very general rules and problems.

  Principles of Ethically Acceptable Research

  Definitions of research ethics

  Ethical issues are relevant to research in general. They are especially relevant in medical and nursing research. Here we find the following definition of research ethics, which may be applicable to other research areas too:

  Research ethics addresses the question of which ethically relevant issues caused by the intervention of researchers can be expected to impact on the people with or about whom they research. It is concerned in addition with the steps taken to protect those who participate in the research, if this is necessary. (Schnell and Heinritz 2006, p. 17)

  Principles

  In the context of the social sciences, Murphy and Dingwall (2001, p. 339) have developed an ‘ethical theory’ that provides a useful framework for this chapter. They discuss: non-maleficence, which means that researchers should avoid any harm to people resulting from participating in a study; beneficence, which implies that research involving human subjects should not simply be carried out for its own sake but should also promise or produce some positive and identifiable benefit; autonomy or self-determination, meaning that research participants’ values and decisions should be respected; and justice

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  Research Design in Clinical Psychology

  • Alan E. Kazdin(Author)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  Yet they have a different thrust. This chapter considers ethical issues. Ethical issues are listed and treated toward the end of the text because they raise general issues that affect most if not all other facets of methodology. Yet, the issues and responsibilities are relevant at the very beginning of a study, in fact, at the stage where the studying is being designed and proposed. For example, when a study is being proposed and undergoes approval by a human subjects review com- mittee (Institutional Review Board or IRB) at most universi- ties, ethical issues receive attention at the outset. Approval of a proposal will require answering such questions as: • Are the participants going to be subjected to any risk, including providing information that might be mis- used by the investigator? • Are there any deceptive practices in the study? • Is the potential knowledge yield of the study worth the potential risk that any participants might experience? These are not all the questions, but they convey that ethical issues and responsibilities enter into the research process before the first subject is recruited. Evaluation and approval of the study and allowing it to go forward require that several ethical issues are satisfactorily addressed. 16.1: Background and Contexts 16.1 Report ethical consideration in statistical studies This chapter focuses on critical ethical issues, research practices in which such issues are raised, and professional obligations associated with them. Chapter 16 Ethical Issues and Guidelines for Research Ethical Issues and Guidelines for Research 401 nonhuman animals in communication, cognition, affect, and action have been enlightening and humbling. That work has contributed to increased concern about using nonhuman animals as subjects but certainly using them in other ways too (e.g., in captivity, as sources of food).

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  Ethical Reasoning in the Mental Health Professions

  • Gary G. Ford(Author)
  • 2000(Publication Date)
  • CRC Press

    (Publisher)

  207 11 Ethical Issues in Research Most mental health professionals conduct research during their academic training and many continue to pursue research as an important part of their professional activity. Behavioral research is generally conducted to test specific hypotheses arising from psychological theories. That is, researchers have ideas about the variables influencing some psychological phenomenon, and they test their expectations about those variables under specified conditions. Thus, the first topic to be addressed in this chapter is the ethical significance of psychological theory construction. Unfortunately, some researchers fail to recognize the tremendous importance of the ethical issues that arise in planning and conducting research, perhaps because they assume that they are simply conducting objective “science” when they take on the role of researcher. However, ethical considerations are as important in research settings as they are in clinical practice. In both cases, there is great potential for harm, as well as benefit, to those affected by the professionals’ decision making. Concern about the potential for harm to human research participants initially focused on biomedical research. However, notable instances of participants being harmed emotionally by behavioral studies, like Milgram’s (1963) research on obedience to authority, increased awareness of the ethical complexity of behavioral research. Milgram (1963) deceived the participants in his study by making them believe they were administering shocks each time the participant they were paired with (actually, a confederate of the experimenter) made an error on a paired associates learning task. Actually, no one was being shocked. Participants became increasingly upset as they were instructed to administer stronger and stronger shocks, but most of them continued to obey the experimenter’s instructions.

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  Power and Influence in Organizations

  • Roderick M. Kramer, Margaret A. Neale, Roderick M Kramer, Margaret A. Neale(Authors)
  • 1998(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications, Inc

    (Publisher)

  M uch of social psychology, historically, has focused on the under-standing of social influence. One of the fundamental facts of social life is that people influence each other, for better or worse. Education is about influence. Communication is about influence. Or-ganization, child rearing, coercion, and advertising are all about influ-ence. As social psychologists study variables that affect behavior, they are studying variables that influence or have a causal connection to behavior, and in this uninteresting sense one can claim that all of social psychology is about influence. The more interesting sense is the explicit emphasis on social influ-ence. Social impact theory (Latané, 1981), theories of persuasion and attitude change (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993), social power (French & Raven, 1959), social conformity (Crutchfield, 1955), and the explicit analysis of the strategies that people use to influence each other (Cialdini, 1993) all focus on the processes that are involved when people change the beliefs or behavior of others or both. 181 8 Some Ethical Aspects of the Social Psychology of Social Influence DAVID M.MESSICK RAFAL . OHME 182 POWER AND INFLUENCE IN ORGANIZATIONS Intentional influence represents the subfield of social psychology that we focus on in this chapter. The prototypical situation that we have in mind contains a minimum of two elements: an agent of influence, the influencer, and a target of influence, the influenced. As Latané (1981) noted in his social impact theory, the agent or the target or both can be either single or multiple persons. What further characterizes this prototypical situation is that the agent wishes, prefers, or desires some outcome that the target can bring about. The influence episode(s) consists of the efforts made by the agent to achieve a desired outcome by having the target perform some action or actions.

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  Research Training for Social Scientists

  A Handbook for Postgraduate Researchers

  • Dawn Burton(Author)
  • 2000(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  PART II

  ETHICAL AND LEGAL ISSUES IN SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH

  Social science research covers a very wide field of studies and those who engage in research in the social sciences will find themselves in all kinds of different situations. No one can tell you exactly what you should do in all the circumstances that may confront you with an ethical dilemma, because it is quite possible that no one else has had to confront exactly that set of conditions before. One of the classic dilemmas, for example, is whether there are circumstances in which you breach the obligations of confidentiality to a respondent. Ultimately, therefore, you have to exercise judgement. But does this not mean that you are on your own and decide what to do as you go along? There are many precedents and examples of what should or should not be done. There are often guidelines, and there are laws that have to be observed, but above all there are ethical principles.

  This part of the book deals with three highly problematic concepts – research, ethics and the law – and it is perhaps timely at this point to identify how these terms will be used. The term research covers a wide range of activity: the focus in the subsequent chapters is concerned with social scientific inquiry which is generally characterized by its systematic and theory driven nature (contrasted with, say, the kind of research that a journalist might undertake). As far as ‘ethics’ are concerned, while the matters considered here have a much wider philosophical context, the emphasis is on ethical principles as applied to the research enterprise. No attempt is made to deal with the whole field of ethics, as broadly conceived. Finally, the law will be evaluated as a particular ethical approach in survey research, and to assess the extent to which the law regulates research.

  The discussion in the following chapters is essentially about understanding what ethical principles are and about translating them into practice. The principles are set out in Chapter 5

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  Research Methods in Applied Settings

  An Integrated Approach to Design and Analysis, Third Edition

  • Jeffrey A. Gliner, George A. Morgan, Nancy L. Leech(Authors)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  14 Ethical Issues in Conducting the Study

  DOI: 10.4324/9781315723082-14

  Throughout this book, we have been discussing the principles of applied behavioral research. In this chapter, we discuss ethical principles of human research and a variety of ethical issues related to the various steps in the process of doing research, including obtaining approval from institutional review boards (IRBs).

  Institutional Review Board (IRB)

  A group that reviews proposals for studies with human participants before the research can begin; the committee is mandated by federal regulations to protect human subjects and to decide whether the research plan has adequately dealt with ethical issues related to the project; also called human subjects committee.

  Ethical Principles in Human Research

  Historical Overview

  There have been ethical problems regarding the treatment of human subjects throughout history, but we begin our summary with the Nazi research atrocities of 1933–1945. In contrast to the rest of this book, we used the phrase human subjects rather than participants. The latter is a relatively recent change that emphasizes the collaborative and voluntary relationship of investigator and participant. The Nazi research atrocities were experiments conducted by respected German doctors and professors on concentration camp inmates that led to their mutilation or death. Although it is tempting to think that these atrocities could be blamed on prison guards, soldiers, or rogue scientists, the evidence indicates otherwise (e.g., Pross, 1992 ). Not only were many of these doctors respected, but Germany also had more advanced moral and legal regulations concerning consent and special protections for vulnerable subjects than any other country at that time (Young, 1999 ). As a result of the trial of these doctors, the Nuremberg code

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  Research Ethics in the Real World

  Issues and Solutions for Health and Social Care Professionals

  • Tony Long, Martin Johnson(Authors)
  • 2006(Publication Date)
  • Churchill Livingstone

    (Publisher)

  Alternative forms of communication WHAT ARE THE ETHICAL ISSUES IN RESEARCH? 52 1 http://www.corec.org.uk are more appropriate for some, especially young children and many people with a disability (perhaps blindness). Pictorial presentation, aural materials and less formal interactive approaches may be more useful. It is essential that the circumstances of the proposed participants drive the mode of presenting information. Coercion Clearly, even if adequate and truthful information has been provided for a competent individual to make an informed choice, coercion in the form of moral force, power differential or threat of retribution, could easily prevent the free choice of options. Such external pressure can be brought to bear unwittingly by researchers, notably in the choice of colleagues or students as research participants, but also through excessive zeal in recruitment. The use of students, particularly the researcher’s own students or those from the same institution where the researcher may exert some influence (such as marking assessed work), provokes difficulties due to the power differential between lecturer and student (see Chapter 3). Similar problems accrue when subordinate staff members are recruited for a research study. Concern about retribution consequent upon refusing to participate, eagerness to remain on good terms with a superior, or perceptions of a lack of legitimate free choice, may persuade an individual to participate on a less than willing basis. The situation of patients or service users invited to participate in research conducted or supported by health professionals who are responsible for medical management or other health intervention is equally fraught with the potential for unintended coercion. Patients may be especially anxious to receive the most effective treatment option (perhaps, on occasion, the only treatment option), and any price may seem worth paying.

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  Quantitative Research Methods in Consumer Psychology

  Contemporary and Data Driven Approaches

  • Paul Hackett(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Psychologists perform a variety of studies involving human research subjects, ranging from interviews, surveys or focus groups to experimental manipulations of behavior, judgment, perception, and decision making. Research with human participants raises a number of ethical issues and is highly regulated. In the United States, the Common Rule applies to research funded by 17 different federal agencies, many of which sponsor psychological research (Department of Health and Human Services, 2009). Most universities apply the Common Rule to all human subjects research on campus, even research that is not funded by a federal agency (Shamoo & Resnik, 2015). The Food and Drug Administration (2014) regulations apply to research conducted to support the approval of drugs, biologics, or medical devices. Various international guidelines also address the ethics of research involving human subjects (Nuremberg Code, 1949; World Medical Association, 2013). These regulations and guidelines embody the following ethical principles for research with human subjects (Shamoo & Resnik, 2015):

  • Scientific design: The research should be well-designed to answer important scientific, medical, or social questions.
  • Risk minimization: The research should use methodologies or procedures to minimize risks to human subjects and others.
  • Social value: The research should be expected to produce important social benefits, such as knowledge with implications for human health and well-being.
  • Risk acceptability: The risks of the research should be acceptable in relation to the potential benefits to the research subjects or the value of the knowledge expected to be gained.
  • Informed consent: Researchers should obtain informed consent from the participants or their legal representatives; consent should be appropriately documented.
  • Confidentiality/privacy: Researchers should safeguard the confidentiality and privacy of participants.
  • Equitable subject selection: The selection of subjects used in research should be scientifically justified and fair.
  • Protection of vulnerable subjects: The research should include additional protections for participants who may be vulnerable to coercion, undue influence, or harm, such as children, prisoners, and mentally disabled adults.
  • Independent oversight: An independent body, such as an IRB, should review and oversee the research.

  Although psychological research usually does not involve the same degree of risk that often occurs in biomedical research, it nevertheless raises important ethical issues (National Research Council, 2014). One of these is deception of human subjects. In psychology, there is a well-documented phenomenon known as the observer effect: human beings may change their behavior when they know that they are being observed (Shamoo & Resnik, 2015). To control for this effect, psychologists sometimes deceive human participants involved in research. Psychologists administering a survey to human participants, for example, might not tell them the hypotheses they are interested in testing to prevent the participants from tailoring their answers to accordingly. This type of deception is widely regarded as benign, because it has little impact on the participants’ well-being. However, other types of deception can be more problematic. For example, social psychologist Stanley Milgram (1974) conducted some famous experiments in the 1960s which attempted to answer questions concerning obedience to authority. In these experiments, a researcher instructed a participant to administer an electric shock to another participant each time they failed to answer a question correctly. The person receiving the shock would sometimes cry out in pain, and in some cases, they requested that the experiment be stopped. A significant percentage of participants continued to administer the shocks, even when the gauge on the instrument said that the shock was at a dangerous level or the person receiving the shock said they wanted to stop the experiment. In reality, no one actually received a shock. The point of the experiment was to determine whether human beings would continue to administer shocks at the urging of an authority figure (the researcher) even when they believed they were causing significant harm to others. After the experiment was over, Milgram debriefed the participants and told them what was really happening. Many of the participants were upset that they had been willing to do something they considered to be morally wrong, and some said they felt they had been manipulated (Milgram, 1974).

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