![]() Nazi science: The Dachau hypothermia experiments. The data, say these people, are neither valid nor reliable and should therefore not be used in any current scientific investigation (Berger, 1990).Berger, P. Further, some who argue against using the Nazi data point out that not only were the experiments immoral but the methods used to collect data were also scientifically questionable. Some argue that because the data were gathered in such an unquestionably unethical manner, they should never be used. Should the Nazi research data be cited? The Hastings Center Report, 14, 5–7. Perhaps the most high-profile case involving macrolevel questions of research ethics comes from debates over whether to use data gathered by, or cite published studies based on data gathered from, the Nazis in the course of their unethical and horrendous experiments on humans during World War II (Moe, 1984).Moe, K. 1993).įinally, at the macro level, a researcher should consider her or his duty to, and the expectations of, society. Retrieved from Scarce spent 159 days in jail because he refused to share with authorities the nature of conversations he’d had with several of his research participants, animal rights activists suspected of vandalizing animal research facilities (Scarce v. Case 99: A real case involving the protection of confidential data. Retrieved from Sixteen years earlier, in 1993, the ASA wrote an amicus brief in support of Washington State University sociology graduate student Rik Scarce who, like DeMuth, was conducting a study of animal rights activism for his dissertation research.American Sociological Association. In 2009, for example, when Scott DeMuth was facing terrorism charges, the ASA’s Animals and Societies Section wrote a public statement in support of DeMuth.Council of the Animals and Society Section of the American Sociological Association: Support for Scott DeMuth. The ASA also has a strong history of supporting sociologists who conduct research in a way that follows the Code of Ethics but for which they experience some legal trouble. As discussed in Section 3.2, the American Sociological Association (ASA) has a Code of Ethics that outlines our profession’s expectations when it comes to how we conduct our research. For example, did Stanley Milgram behave ethically when he allowed research participants to think that they were administering electronic shocks to fellow participants? Did Laud Humphreys behave ethically when he deceived his research subjects about his own identity? Were the rights of individuals in these studies protected? While there may not be any easy answers, the questions posed here are the sort that you will want to ask yourself as a researcher when considering ethics at the micro level.Īt the meso level, researchers should think about the expectations of their given profession (in this case, sociology). Within most research projects, there are specific questions that arise for researchers at each of these three levels.Īt the micro level, researchers must consider their own conduct and the rights of individual research participants. ![]() Here we’ll apply the micro-meso-macro framework to a discussion of research ethics. In Chapter 2, you learned about the micro, meso, and macro levels of inquiry and how a researcher’s specific point of focus might vary depending on his or her level of inquiry. One useful way to think about the breadth of ethical questions that might arise out of any research project is to think about potential issues from the perspective of different analytical levels. Identify and distinguish between micro-, meso-, and macrolevel considerations with respect to the ethical conduct of social scientific research.
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