![]() This form summarizes the aims of the study and the possible risks of being a subject. Before a researcher can begin obtaining data, the subjects of the research must normally sign an informed consent form. Humphreys responded that he protected the men’s names and that their behavior was not private, as it was conducted in a public setting (Humphreys, 1975).Īnother ethical issue concerns consent. Many sociologists and other observers later criticized Humphreys for acting so secretly and for violating his subjects’ privacy. He also wrote down their license plates and obtained their addresses and a year later disguised himself and interviewed the men at their homes. He did so by acting as the lookout in several encounters where two men had sex the men did not know Humphreys was a researcher. Laud Humphreys studied male homosexual sex that took place in public bathrooms. Scarce was jailed for contempt of court when he refused to tell a grand jury what he had learned about the group and spent several months behind bars (Monaghan, 1993).Ī third example aroused much discussion among sociologists when it came to light. In another case, a graduate student named Rik Scarce refused to turn over his field notes on radical environmentalists after one of the groups he was studying vandalized a university laboratory. The controversy ended 2 years later when the suspects died and the prosecutor’s office abandoned its effort to obtain the notes (Brajuha & Hallowell, 1986). ![]() Meanwhile, two suspects in the case also demanded his field notes for their legal defense, but again Brajuha refused. When Brajuha refused, he was threatened with imprisonment. When the police suspected arson, they asked Brajuha to turn over his field notes. In one example, a graduate student named Mario Brajuha had been doing participant observation as a restaurant waiter on Long Island, New York, when the restaurant burned down. Some sociologists consider the privacy and confidentiality of subjects so important that they have risked imprisonment when they have refused to violate confidentiality. In field research, anonymity must also be maintained, and aliases (fake names) should normally be used when the researcher reports what she or he has been observing. When a survey is used, the data must be coded (prepared for computer analysis) anonymously, and in no way should it be possible for any answers to be connected with the respondent who gave them. When they do research, sociologists should protect the privacy and confidentiality of their subjects. One of the most important ethical guidelines in sociological and other human-subject research concerns privacy and confidentiality. The federal government has an extensive set of standards for research on human subjects, and the major sociology professional society, the American Sociological Association, has a code of ethics for sociological research. If the subjects had been white and middle class, they said, the government would have ended the study once it learned that penicillin could cure syphilis (Jones, 1981).įortunately, sociological research does not have this potential for causing death or serious illness, but it still can cause other kinds of harm and thus must follow ethical standards. Several observers likened it to experiments conducted by Nazi scientists. The study did not end until the early 1970s, when the press finally disclosed the experiment. As a result, several of the men died from their disease, and some of their wives and children came down with it. After scientists found a decade later that penicillin could cure this disease, the government scientists decided not to give penicillin to the Tuskegee men because doing so would end their research. The men had syphilis, for which no cure then existed, and were studied to determine its effects. Public Health Service began studying several hundred poor, illiterate African American men in Tuskegee, Alabama. Such harm can be quite severe in medical research unless certain precautions are taken. Research involving human subjects must follow certain ethical standards to make sure the subjects are not harmed. ![]()
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