The ethics of deception in social research: A case study |
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Authors: | Erich Goode |
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Institution: | (1) Department of Sociology, State University of New York at Stony Brook, 11794 Stony Brook, NY |
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Abstract: | Using data from a study on courtship through personal advertisements, I argue that Kai Erikson's classic case against disguised
observation is flawed. Certain kinds of deception are necessary to gather certain data in certain settings. I placed bogus
ads in a personal column to obtain and analyze responses. The data would have remained inaccessible—indeed, many of the responses
would not have existed in the first place—without some measure of deception. While deception was used, no risk whatsoever
was posed to respondents. I further argue that several of Erikson's criteria of risk do not separate ethical from empirical
questions; informants use very different criteria in evaluating the risk of harm to them posed by social research that sociologists
use. The question of exploitation is more complex, since it has to be weighed against how much of an effort my respondents
made and hence, what it is exactly that I took from them. A “panel of judges” decided that most of my male (but not my female)
respondents would not have gotten dates with my hypothetical ad placers, and that the research method I used was not especially
unethical. |
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Keywords: | social research ethical issues disguised observation courtship personal ads |
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