ETHICS IN SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH

Amar Jesani

310 Prabhu Darshan, 31 S. Sainik Nagar, Amboli, Andheri WestMumbai 400058, India. Tel: (91)(22) 26770227. Email: jesani@vsnl.com

The social science research in health has come of age in India. Never before such high volume of research using a very wide range of methodologies was carried out as is being done now. Although health research is not so high on the agenda of a large number of institutions and university departments of the country, most of them have opened up to it, or it is seen as one of the important areas for the social and health scientists to undertake research. Moreover, they find the technical aspects of medicine less intimidating, and there are indeed more students doing their doctorate or the master’s thesis on health related issues than in the past. In addition, we have public health institutes with stronger social sciences components than available in the medical colleges, which give post-graduate degrees in preventive and social medicine. Vast amount of research generated from such institutes is also contributing in the ever-increasing corpus of social science research in health. On the other hand, in last two decades, the health data generated in various rounds of the National Sample Surveys Organisation (NSSO) have been supplemented by the district level surveys and even by the national level health surveys by the social sciences institutions and population studies centres. Notable among them are the surveys of the National Council for Applied Economic Research (NCAER), New Delhi and the two rounds of the National Family Health Surveys of the International Institute of Populations Sciences, Mumbai; with their collaborating organisations across the country. Add to these the health research work of the Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) of different types all over the country and also several international organisations working in collaboration with Indian organisations; we have a really large number of organisations undertaking health research.

The variety in organisations undertaking social science research is only matched by the variety of the researchers. The very fact that not so many biomedical and social scientists were involved in social science health research till 1970s left open space for a wider variety of individuals to get involved. This was aided by the fact that the “professionalisation” of the social science disciplines has remained low and some scope existed for multidisciplinary and inter-disciplinary approaches, albeit much of it was outside the formal university departments. Thus, it is not unusual to find medical doctors, community health specialists, individuals from other health sciences and natural sciences making their contribution to the social science research in health. In the NGO sector in particular, this space was more available and we find several activists of the NGOs, often not having any formal training in research in general or social science research in particular, also making their contribution. Besides, within social scientists, one finds lots of interdisciplinary work, with sociologists getting involved in health economics studies or economists doing sociological and anthropological studies, or social workers undertaking policy research and political scientists involved in researching counselling techniques.

The variety in the institutions and individuals undertaking health research has also gone hand-in-hand with the variety that has emerged in the kind of methodologies used for social science research. While surveys, with their old understanding of “the bigger the better”, are still preferred as they provide greater opportunities to influence health policies, the smaller surveys to develop newer and rigorous methods of data collection, to bring out specificities of the problems of regions and different social strata – particularly the oppressed and underprivileged groups; to supplement the larger surveys that have missed out on the nuances of the situations, and for many other objectives; are carried out. At the same time, in last one and half decades, the quantitative survey methodology is both challenged and supplemented by a wide array of qualitative research methodologies. Thus, in-depth interviews and case studies, focus group discussions, participant observations, role-plays, games, and so on are used more in health research than ever before. Indeed, the qualitative research has very forcefully made its way despite the scepticism of the quantitative researchers; and brought at the centre-stage many social concerns conveniently ignored by the survey researchers in the past. The gender issues, the reproductive and sexual health issues, etc. have found prominent place in the research enterprise. And such work is also pushing hard the policy makers to recognise the contribution of qualitative research findings. Thus, there are more researchers now trying to triangulate different methodologies in their research.

The expansion of the number of institutions, individuals and methods in social health research naturally coincided with the increase in the kind of research topics being investigated. While the traditional areas of the health research – the general health surveys, the health seeking behaviour and disease perception studies, etc. have continued and deepened their scope by bringing in more specific but sensitive issues such as reproductive and sexual behaviour, studies in provision of information and communication, behaviour of providers, etc. have also increased. Another sensitive area finding greater attention of researchers is the family violence, the violence and its effect on the victims and survivors, behaviour of providers in situations of violence and so on. It is not possible to list all such areas of research, but it is sufficient to note that health has found connection with many more social issues and vice versa than it was done in the past in India. As a consequence, very sensitive data are being generated with the increased potential for good as well as bad use of them and also having potential to shake up conservative cultural norms.

Lastly, there is also an increased trend of sponsored research that is enmeshed in the above situation. In the past, the research at the universities and academic institutions depended heavily on the departmental and government sponsorship, with very few social science research projects done with sponsorship of outside private organisations. But the decline in the official sponsorships gradually acted as compulsion; for many departments to opt for outside support for research. At the same time the sponsoring of the research outside the university departments and institutions by the government and the foreign sponsoring agencies first brought many NGOs in the health research. But this opening has been enlarged by the sponsoring agencies of all kinds by bringing in the for-profit marketing research and other private organisations. While the private for-profit marketing research organisations have made major inroads in successfully bidding for large health research projects from the foreign donors and even the government departments, the other such

agencies like the advertisement firms, the consultancy firms and individual consultants, etc. have also entered the field of health research. Much of the research done by such organisations is not traditional academic research where in a classical way, global questions are posed and the information is used for building new theories or to modify the existing ones. Much of such research is not published in scientific peer reviewed journals as it stays either as confidential report for the sponsoring agencies or few copies of their reports are published for circulation in narrow circles by those agencies. Such research is usually narrowly empirical and applied research, with little efforts at generalisation and for developing comprehensive understanding of the social health. Indeed, the effect of this trend – both in terms of availability of the finances and the demands made – is such that it has started acting as some kind of intellectual and financial discouragement for the academic and theoretical research in health. Added to this scenario is also the increasing number of evaluation research. While experimental social health research in terms of demonstration projects or action research, is considerably old in India, the intervention research with pointed objective of bringing about desired social change in relation to health and health care is an emerging area of multidisciplinary research enterprise.

Problems of proliferation:

The multi-dimensional proliferation has created double impact on the social science research. Firstly, it provided some visibility to health research in the social sciences as well as in biomedical disciplines. This was due to the sheer volume and the rapid increase of such social science health research. Secondly, it also made many ethical problems in social science health research more visible than ever. Many health professionals who entered social science health research brought their concerns of professional ethics to this field, the highly applied nature of research made ethical concerns more prominent than it was in the pure or theoretical research and at the same time, the entry of untrained individuals to social science produced controversies on some of the outputs of the research that were identified with the violation of ethics or rights of the participants. In fact, historically, the concern for research ethics appeared first in the empirical applied research than the conceptual or theoretical simply because the former tried to find immediate answers to the existing problem and were often undertaken in order to make intervention or to recommend intervention(s). Over and above all such considerations, the ethics have started becoming prominent, not only in research but also in other fields of health work simply because of the increasing impact of the human rights movement and the efforts to bring to public notice various mal-practices of the professionals. The latter has effectively shattered the demigod image of health professionals, leading to questioning of their conduct more than ever in the past.

While societal gaze is sharply focusing on the conduct of health professionals and researchers, there is inadequate parallel development of regulatory or self-regulatory mechanism to incorporate social concerns in research and to monitor the works of theirs. In fact, as compared to the biomedical research, in the field of social science research in health, little effort has been made to evolve some consensus about how such mechanism should address the ethical concerns and monitor the conduct of researchers and

professionals. The social science institutions are mostly devoid of any institutional mechanism to review and monitor research, and have not applied their minds about the standards and tools to be used for such purpose. On the other hand, under the increasing public pressure and for the reasons of its own, the biomedical institutions are gradually trying to establish or activate the existing defunct institutional review and monitoring mechanism, but they lack conceptual tools to appreciate and review the social science health research. Much of it is clubbed, often without giving serious thought, under the heading of “minimal harm” research. Indeed, till recently, even within the field of biomedical research, the social harm and benefits were hardly considered important issues for discussion in the review of research proposals and the ethical guidelines did not attach adequate importance to them. As a consequence, the societal concerns and the regulatory or self-regulatory mechanisms were often at odd with each other, sometimes leading to open confrontations. Since the researchers are not actually regulating themselves, not being transparent about their work, and not being seen to be concerned about the demands made for such transparency and regulation, the situation is tarnishing bad as well as good research with one brush, making good concerned researchers uneasy and the public sceptical about all of them.

Assuming that good, socially relevant research undertaken for the betterment of people’s lives is absolutely essential and that the researchers’ job is to meet such need, the issue of the ethical standards and mechanism for observance of ethics in research become highly relevant at present time in our country. The chief purpose of guidelines is to evolve ethical standards and methodology for resolving dilemmas. The Guidelines of the ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research) and NCESSRH of the CEHAT should be viewed as contribution in this direction.

Social sciences, medicine and research in health

Often most of the ethics guidelines for research focus on those research that involve human beings, and of late, also animals. Many people thus get an impression that by implication, any research that does not directly involve human beings need not have ethical concerns, or ethics is not intrinsic to such research endeavour. For instance, very little is talked about the ethical issues while undertaking research in the physical sciences that deal with chemicals and things, the ethics becoming prominent only at the time of publication of findings of such research and at the time of application of its findings having effect on human and social lives, and the environment. That is one of the reasons why the physical sciences do not have elaborate guidelines on ethics intrinsic to its research work but have guidelines only for their applied disciplines. However, this simplistic understanding is going through a profound change. The scientists who were involved in discovering atom and how to split or fuse its components in laboratories using physical matters, also discovered to their dismay that the energy generated was used to destroy human beings, animals and the environment. More so, in recent times, the laboratory-based work in genetics using biological material brought out problems in ethics of even pure science not directly involving human beings and animals. The researchers from physical sciences involved in applying their science for inventing weapons to be used directly for killing or

maiming human beings, or even the pure or fundamental research undertaken with the specific purpose to eventually apply for inventing weapons for such purposes, need to ponder over both the purpose and eventual use and misuse of their work. Indeed, the concerns of ethics and human rights, the concerns of human beings, society and its environment are increasingly breaking the boundary of pure and applied research; and boundaries between the ethics in physical, medical, social and other branches of science.

Biomedical research:

The medicine on the other hand has component of pure bio-medical research including that not requiring direct participation of human and animal subjects; and its application to human beings. Medical professionals work as researchers in both but are more visible as researchers as well as care givers in the clinical settings. The medicine has a long and known history of concerns for ethics since ancient times, though the modern medicine is only few centuries old. The tradition of medical ethics has endured over centuries and found place even when medicine got transformed and modernised. In an excellent brief historical exposition of medical ethics, Albert Jonsen (2000: ix-x) explains that although this tradition is informed by divergent discourses of many centuries and cultures, there are several consistent themes within such discourses that provide us with a framework for understanding moral concerns in medicine. He designates three major domains of ethics in general and their particular application to medicine, viz. decorum, deontology and politic ethics. He describes decorum as comprising a variety of attitudes and actions, with names such as politeness, courage, respectfulness and resoluteness; the qualities that are often called virtues (or vices). Deontology (deon means duty or obligation) is built around the understanding of what one ought to or ought not to do, and thus is expressed in terms of rules, guidelines and principles. And the politic ethics, a term not so often used in the ethics discourse, looks beyond the individual, to the society, to the individual in relationship with others, and to the medicine in relation to society. Thus, the guidelines getting converted into codes for regulations, the formal mechanisms for their practical application and the concern for the purpose and wider impact of medical research fall in the domain of politic ethics.

Despite its profound history, the medical ethics before World War II paid more attention to consolidating the power of medical profession and to arbitrating the disputes within the profession than protecting patients and research subjects (Jonsen 2000: 51 and 91-97, Rayack 1967: 7-8). But the War stirred the sedate tradition of medical ethics. On August 19, 1947, 20 Nazi physicians and 3 medical administrators were handed verdict by the Nuremberg War Tribunal for their participation in “murder, torture and other atrocities committed in the name of medical science”. Nine of them were sentenced to long prison terms and seven were sentenced to death by hanging for subjecting unwilling victims to medical procedures that were called scientific experiments, thereby having caused their death, disfigurement or disability (Jonsen 2000: 100). Interestingly, the War also brought about scientific revolution in medicine as during the War the US poured money for “more effective military medicine”, and the financial support for medical research continued even after the war. Thus, between early 1940s and 1965, treatment for infections, delicate surgical procedures, life sustaining devices and so forth were discovered and brought into use in medicine and they in term brought forth new ethical problems. In 1960s, thus came

into existence the “new” discipline of bioethics. The Nuremberg tribunal also formulated Nuremberg code for scientific experiments with voluntary informed consent as the central feature. Further development in the formulation of ethical guidelines for biomedical research, however, had to wait for a controversy or research scandal in 1960s and 1970s. The first was the impact of a paper by Henry Beecher (1966) reviewing ethics in 22 cases of research. It showed that investigators had endangered the health or life of their subjects without informing them of the risks or obtaining their consent. Soon this was followed by the scandal of research, the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, initiated in 1932 by the US Public Health Service in Macon County, Alabama to determine the natural course of untreated, latent syphilis in black males. It comprised 400 syphilitic and 200 uninfected men (as control); and went on unhindered till 1972 when the public outcry and investigations stopped it (Brandt 2003: 20). This controversy stirred the US government and as a result of the Senate hearings, the Congress passed the Research Act of 1974 that made it necessary the establishment of Institutional Review Boards. At the same time in 1974, the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioural Research (1979) was appointed; it operated till 1978 and published its now famous Belmont Report in 1979.

Social sciences research:

Social sciences, as a systematic practice of social inquiry and data collection, are not very old, though the discipline of Humanities, from which they separated in 17 th and 18th

Centuries, is having long history like medicine, and also provided a corpus of social theories to social sciences (Barnes 1979: 27). The social sciences comprise of several disciplines, such as anthropology, economics, sociology, psychology, demography, statistics and so on. For undertaking research in all of them, the scientists cannot but deal with human beings or from the data generated by other agencies, including governments, on the human beings. Thus, social sciences deal systematically with the behaviour, status, relationships among people; with the social institutions created and operated by them; and with the social and physical environment in which they function and relate to each other. A researcher doing social inquiry into the functioning of the market, state, family, health services and systems, individuals in various institutions, and so on, is therefore, dealing with human individuals, collectivities and their institutions. Besides, social institutions are not simple organisations devoid of their good and bad elements; they all are embodiments of the kind of power structures existing within the society. The information made available from the social inquiry could be a powerful tool for further entrenching those in power as well as for unseating them in favour of others; for increasing exploitation and oppression as well as for getting rid of them. Thus, the use of the findings of social research could have far-reaching consequences for the autonomy, well being and privacy of the individual as well as communities and the society. Indeed, the purpose for which the research is undertaken, the way research is conducted and the manner in which its findings are used; all have direct relationship, involvement or impact on human beings, and that makes the social research the most contested terrain in the research enterprise. Added to that is the fact that researcher himself or herself come from the same society, and despite using seemingly objective methodologies and tools for research, his or her views have great bearing on what, why and how of the research.

The 17th and 18th Centuries that heralded systematic social inquiry also were a part of the era of development of modern scientific method whose one of the aims was to discover, in a rational way, the laws governing nature. While this inaugurated great revolution in science, it also made an impact by bringing method of science to the social sciences. This became known as positivism in the philosophy of social sciences. It is an approach that “applies scientific method to human affairs conceived as belonging to a natural order open to objective inquiry” (Hollis 2000: 41). In the early years of development of social sciences, this approach was not seriously challenged. According to Barnes (1979: 23-4), “empirical inquiry in sociology began with the poor, in social anthropology with natives and in psychology, after an early period when highly trained respondents were used, with students”. When the “objects” of research are highly subordinated and the outcome of research enlightenment or discovery of “truth” for elite scientists, such approach could easily hold the sway; and the scientists hardly talked of ethics in such an endeavour. But unlike atoms and chemicals, these “objects” are living human beings, and so they not only talk to researchers but also talk back. Society of humans can’t be treated as terrain for unattached objective research in the same way as laboratory, and since they are not static and society not a finished product, the humans also shape and reshape the social laws and structures. Thus, as the poor and the natives found more voice, the positivist paradigm started getting challenged and the ethical concerns of social inquiry started emerging as a part of the social science discourse. Indeed, this also triggered off evolution of newer methodologies for social science research, and so we now have a wide spectrum; starting from those who give science over-arching importance and people who are being studied as mere objects of research to methodologies treating people as subjects, participants, equal partners in scientific exploration or even as dominant determinants of how the research should be conducted. The advent of “action research” put paid to the detached and objective research, as it necessarily makes researcher committed, not detached; implementer, not mere observer. In all methodologies, and not only in action research, the researchers do take position by acts of omission or commission, and thus, invariably face ethical problems.

From his insights into the history of evolution of social sciences, their methodologies and theories, Barnes (1979: 14) proposed a model comprising of four parties in social science research enterprise for understanding the source of ethical concerns. These four parties are: (1) people or citizens or participants with or about whom the research is being undertaken; (2) the researchers or scientists who carry out the inquiry (and we may include here the institutions from where the researcher do this); (3) the sponsors of research – who could be government or non-government agents, including the research institution if it is financing and providing material support for research; and (4) the gatekeepers or facilitators, who control access to the participants or people or any other research material. These four parties are normally having different positions of power in research enterprise, and so the interaction among them in the process of research creates ethical problems and issues. At the same time, the solution for the ethical issues is also embedded in the way they behave with each other. According to Barnes (1979: 24), “any worthwhile practical attempt to resolve ethical issues in social inquiry has to take into account the distribution of power between scientists, citizens, sponsors and gatekeepers, and will often involve negotiation between the parties rather than the inflexible application of operationalised rules of procedure”.

This scepticism for rules, procedures, codes and guidelines for resolving ethical issues is deep-rooted among a large section of social scientists. Perhaps that explains why unlike biomedical research, which also directly deals with the human beings, the professional bodies of social scientists were late in formulating ethical guidelines for professional conduct and took even longer to accept them in their research work. In India, this process is still in its infancy. Nevertheless, internationally, despite enduring internal scepticism the social sciences have made many advances in formulating guidelines. They did so because they also had their Tuskegees.

Controversies of social science research and ethics

Historically, the concern for ethics in research of any kind got highlighted in response to the controversies around the inappropriate conduct of research. Each “scandal” about the gross malpractice in research, and then, each controversy about the correct way of achieving good for the participants as well as research, generated debate on whether and how to regulate and self-regulate the enterprise of research. The codification of commonly practiced ethical norms in terms of Ethical Codes, Guidelines or Conventions and Declarations were natural outcome of such concerns at the national and international levels. Thus, in the words of Susanna Rance and Silvia Salinas (2001), “ethical guidelines carry the historical burden of abuses already perpetrated”. Thus, guidelines and periodic revisions of them often carry a sense of guilt felt by the community of researchers in face of public exposure of inappropriate conduct of research or the charge of injustice perpetrated, consciously or inadvertently, in the past. However, everything in the guidelines is not directly related to the scandal, there are also many elements that are formulated keeping in mind the best ways used by researchers in resolving the ethical dilemmas and problems encountered and at the same time many elements also reflect the changing power relationship between the four parties; and the relations between the local, national and international researchers and sponsors. All of them thus make it imperative that controversies and accumulation of the wisdom from the past are made educational material for the future generations so that similar controversies are avoided.

The discipline of anthropology was one of the first to experience problems. In the colonial times, till the later part of the 19 th Century, many of the administrators of the colonial powers took keen interest in understanding the society they had subjugated and were ruling. In India, the colonial administrators’ reports provide the glimpse into and the anthropological material on the way they looked at the alien culture and society. But much of such interest was either a part of the curiosity or a part of immediate interest for setting up a system of exploitation favourable to the power. As the anti-colonial struggles intensified or due to sheer need to rope in the local elites for managing the conquered society, they needed more information and that came from their administrator providing insights of anthropologists or from the anthropologists themselves. The anthropology providing any service for reinforcing the power of rulers against the natives they were studying inevitably created tension. And controversies on the ethical conduct hit the discipline from time to time. The 1st World War intensified this many fold. In the year

2000, David Price had an opportunity to examine documents of the 1st World War declassified under the Freedom of Information Act by the US government, and what he read provided some verification of the debate that took place in 1919 in American Anthropological Association (AAA). Writing in the November 20, 2000 issue of The Nation, Price (2000) mentions a letter written on December 20, 1919 to The Nation by Franz Boas, the father of academic anthropology in the USA, accusing four American anthropologists for abusing their research position by conducting espionage in Central America during the 1st World War. However, the governing council of the AAA immediately censured him for abusing his professional position by making such accusation, and thus absolving the accused anthropologists from wrongdoing. Price (2000) found enough material in the declassified files substantiating the accusation of Boar, but not only that, one of the accused scientist went on to repeat his espionage work for the intelligence agencies of the US government in the 2nd World War too. Similar debate among the social scientists took place during the Vietnam War in which the US social scientists were engaged in their professional capacity by the military on an unprecedented scale, and charges of unethical conduct were made against and disputed by those involved and others (Barnes, 1979: 66). It was argued that the areas of Vietnam for bombing were often determined by using the findings of the social scientists on the rebel influence or hideouts.

The use and abuse of social sciences are covered in many writings in last 50 years and longer. For instance, Frank Heller’s (1986) edited volume on this subject not only examines various methodologies that have been evolved to give space to the views of participants of the studies but also looks at the situations in which the research is used or misused. Once one goes into the use and misuse, one is not only talking about the essentiality of social scientists not undertaking any classified and covert research – a guidance very prominent now in most of the social science codes or guidelines - but also about being very conscious of the purpose of research and its potential use and misuse. The ethical obligation of the social scientists to protest and correct the misinterpretation and misuse of their research is therefore now part of many guidelines of social sciences.

Project Camelot:

The relationship between the information and power is extensively discussed. Information is power and the powerful exercise their rule by having access to crucial information. That makes the social scientists both vulnerable and powerful in face of those who sponsor their work and has first opportunity to use the information generated on what is going on in the society. In the 1960s the controversy around the multi-million dollar project called Camelot by the American University with sponsorship from the Defence Department of the US brought in sharp focus all such issues and as a fall out of this aborted attempt, stirred the social scientists, particularly of the US, to put their house in order and accept some regulations. This project came into being as an offspring of the Army’s Special Operation Research Office (SORO) with an initial grant of six million dollars for three to four years, a single largest grant ever provided for a social science project till that time in the US. The project was located in the American University, was looked at as basic social science research with participation of academic sociologists, political scientists and anthropologists. Its objectives included study of pre-conditions of internal conflicts and

discovering the effects of action taken by local governments in easing, exacerbating or resolving these preconditions. The data collection was envisaged from various Latin American countries and later on also from other parts of the world. Since the US Army sponsored the project, there was clear possibility that it would use the information to cope or manage internal conflicts in other countries (Barnes 1979: 47, Horowitz 1967: 4-10, Silvert 1967: 81).

The name of the University, availability of almost unlimited money and possibility of undertaking big-range social science research attracted many well-known social scientists from across the US. Some did feel uncomfortable at the military sponsorship but at the same time believed that armed forces also needed to be educated. Some were ideologically convinced that US military could play a good role in preventing “revolutionary holocaust”. But none of them viewed this as an assignment for spying on behalf of the US government (Horowitz 1967: 7-8). As the core group of the social scientists was put together, the efforts to enlist the academic social scientists from some Latin American countries for collaboration began. When such efforts were made to enlist academic social scientists in Chile, the person doing it did not disclose upfront the military sponsorship though the same was well known within the US. This was construed as camouflage for possible motive for espionage. But as soon as this became known, first there was a protest from some Chilean academics and then the media took it up resulting into street demonstrations against such project of the US. And this happened in the backdrop of the US intervention in the Dominican Republic to stop the spread of Cuban revolution and to support the right wing military government. The embarrassed US Embassy in Chile sent out a message demanding explanation from its government. The Chilean government set up the committee to investigate and the US started similar exercise to reconcile differences between its defence and foreign policy departments on the project and to streamline such future funding. Thus, within a year of its high profile initiation, the project was scrapped and all social scientists associated with the project came in the eye of stormy debate on their conduct.

While the allegations of spying were strongly made in the popular and political debates, but soon receded after initial furore, the academic community was forced to gear up to initiate debate in all aspects of the project so that correct lessons were learnt and assimilated. The debate touched upon wide range of issues such as methodological soundness of the project, morality of working with the sponsorship of the military establishment, the issue of the extent to which the social scientists and the University department involved in it had autonomy to determine the conceptual framework, methodology and analysis of the study, the use of deception in research, the relationship between research and policies of the country – both domestic as well international, the problems of studying conflict situations and the conflict within the research; and so on. The very fact that a social science project created diplomatic problem between two countries and received high level of public attention made this project a reference point in the formulation of new and reformulation of the existing ethical guidelines in social sciences.

Indeed, despite all guidelines and promises of self-regulations, the ethical issues raised by this project are not settled and they keep generating debates. As mentioned earlier, the US military establishment did recruit social scientists to undertake studies in Vietnam only few

years after the disastrous demise of the project Camelot, thus showing that “patriotism” could be a potent force against consideration of ethics. Not only in the social science research that has close relation with politics and its use and misuse in policy making are contentious issues, but the debate is often similar in the international biomedical research, too. In the contemporary world, the politics, economics, international relation and science of all types are so closely interlinked that no scientist can afford to limit the concerns for ethics in the narrow domain of science and the data collection. Every research endeavour is a block in priority setting, each one is done not only with the quest for more scientific knowledge but also with some other purpose(s) in a specific social context and sponsorship, facilitation or support.

Social science in laboratory – deception and harm:

The amount of social science research undertaken in the controlled laboratory setting on human beings is often less known. But that is where many of the experiments in psychology are carried out. One that led to intense controversy and therefore sharp attention to ethics was Stanley Milgram’s series of experiments conducted to assess the extent to which the subjects or participants obeyed the authority of experimenter in giving painful electric shock to an unknown innocent person. They were carried out in laboratory between 1960 and 1964 at Yale University, USA. The participants were told that the experiments were meant to study effects of punishment on learning, and they were asked to give increasing amount of electric shock to a “learner” whenever he made a mistake in learning. In the actual experiment, whenever the subject gave electric shock to the “learner”, no electric current passed but the “learner” feigned pain upon whenever subject punished him by increasing the electric shock, thus making the subject to believe that he had actually given such shock and pain to the “learner”. The findings revealed that a very high number of subjects, despite knowing that they were giving excruciating pain by using electric shock, continued to increase it at the order of the researcher. The conclusion of course showed that people do commit atrocities in obedience to the commands of authorities (Kimmel 1996:13-14).

Two major ethical issues raised by these experiments shook up the community of psychologists. The first was deception. The participants were not told about the true nature of experiment, they were told only about studying response to punishment on learning. There was also deception involved in not actually having electric current and giving of pain, but making the participants believe that they were giving electric shock and the pain. Thus, deception was combined with “rigging” of the experiment, the latter of course being necessary simply because giving actual shock and pain could have been blatantly unethical. For the former, however, a strong methodological justification was made out. By knowing the true objective of the research, the subjects could have changed their behaviour. The second ethical issue raised was related to the kind of discomfort and harm that the subjects giving pain could have experienced while participating in the experiment and later on when they were actually told about the true nature of experiment they participated. Although Milgram defended himself very strongly by showing that there were no indication of injurious effects on the participants (and opponents claiming otherwise), the controversies around his experiments made the researchers realise that “use of deceptive and stressful methodologies in laboratory studies are obvious source of ethical dilemmas” (Kimmel

1996: 15). The controversy also increased search by the psychologists to evolve new methodologies for research, including experimentation outside the laboratory, in the community, in what was termed as “naturalistic settings”. Thus increased the popularity of simple observations of public behaviour as against the surreptitious observations used very often in the past, contrived observations where the researcher intervenes in the natural setting by creating staged events and then observing the behaviour, participant observations, and so on. The increasing number of new methodologies also brought with them ethical issues faced by researchers in other social sciences to psychology, such as intrusion in the privacy of those being observed, seeking consent of those being experimented upon or the problem of anxiety faced by the participants in the staged events.

Secrecy, deception and intrusion:

In social science research, what to tell and what not to tell the participants so that their behaviour do not change making research difficult, or how to make the participants give information about themselves that they often keep guarded, or whether or to what extent to intrude into the privacy or personal/private domain of the participants; are very sensitive and often contentious ethical issues. Many otherwise good studies done with good intentions faced intense criticism on these issues. Two well-known ones, though extreme cases, would serve as good illustration. One is Wichita Jury Study that began in 1954 and another is Laud Humphrey’s “tearoom trade” study done in late 1960s and published in 1970.

The US uses the jury system in the judicial decision-making. The Wichita Jury study was designed by law professors from the University of Chicago to understand the adequacy of the jury decision-making process. The researchers, with permission of the judges and the opposing advocates, and without informing the defendants, plaintiffs and the jurors; hid microphones to record jury deliberation of six separate civil cases. The researchers also committed that the recording will not be listened to till all cases had been closed including the appeal process and the anonymity of all participants would be ensured. There was a massive public uproar when this became known. Apart from the issue of the violation of law – the US constitution guarantees the secrecy of the jury deliberation – it also raised questions related to confidentiality and privacy. Above all, it was also criticised for its potential to harm the jury system – the realisation that without their knowledge their deliberation could be secretly being recorded could adversely affect the jury decision-making process (Kimmel 1996: 11). The attempt to learn the secrets of socially and legally necessary secret deliberations using deception and intrusion of privacy thus fell flat.

On the other hand, in the “tearoom trade” study, Humphrey attempted to observe the homosexuals gathering at the public restrooms (called by them “tearooms”) in a disguise of being a “watchqueen” who was allowed to watch sexual acts without participating and in exchange for serving as a look out to warn of approaching strangers. Humphrey also noted down the license plate number of the visitors to the restrooms and later on visited them in the disguise of market researcher at their residence to collect information about them. After obtaining information, he destroyed the record containing identities of the participants so that their identities could not be revealed. The study came under heavy criticism for its failure to protect privacy of the participants and for using questionable means for data

collection. The negative reaction was so intense that it prompted an unsuccessful attempt to have his doctoral thesis (for which this research was done) rescinded (Kimmel 1996: 15-16).

The secrecy, deception and intrusion are so pervading issues in social science inquiry that they are constantly in debate. Sissela Bok (1984) in her book titled “Secrets: on the ethics of concealment and revelation” has extensively documented such research, investigations including investigative journalism, under-cover police operations and many other endeavours in which they are used. Interestingly, one finds that the zeal of social scientists with good or bad motives is so high in entering the otherwise forbidden zones that many of them refuse to accept any boundaries in their work. Such things are also intimately connected to the contemporary understanding of how the idea of privacy and personal are viewed by the researchers and the society.

All such issues and some of the public controversies motivated social scientists to spend some time in formulating boundaries and guidance for themselves. In that process it was natural that those social sciences where the applied research had advanced creating dilemmas related to its use and misuse; and where the use of “questionable” methods having elements of deception and potential stress for participants was high; were the first to initiate process of formulating their guidelines. Thus, the American Psychological Association established a special committee on scientific and professional ethics in 1938 and the Society for Applied Anthropology was the first to adopt formal ethical guidelines in 1951. The post War period, and particularly the controversies of 1960s and early 1970s accelerated this process. It should be kept in mind the controversies of 1960s took place in the context of wider social upheavals like anti-War movements, students unrests, rise of black movements, high level of anti-imperialist sentiments and struggles and so on. The controversies only undermined the moral stature of data collectors leading the questioning of the utility and benefits of providing information for national surveys and Censuses by the people belonging to underprivileged strata.

In 1972, the 16th General Conference of the UNESCO, expressed interest in the problems relating to the ethics of social science research, and in 1973 it commissioned an international survey of codes of ethics adopted or under review by national and international professional associations of social scientists. The researchers approached some 300 such associations, received response from about 90 national associations and of them 24 submitted their codes of ethics. Analysing findings in UNESCO’s journal, Reynolds (1974) explained that most associations had their codes in the “set-of-principles” format expressing concern for the risks to human participation and promotion of good by research; and many code had high value attached to the integrity of the research, the risk-benefit analysis, emphasis on informed consent and honouring commitments made, deception to be used only if absolutely essential but additional precautions necessary, strong emphasis on the respect for privacy and assurance of confidentiality, and so on. Some of them paid attention to the problems associated with sponsors and publication, while few had mechanism on penalties for non-compliance incorporated in the codes, making him to comment that, “the full force of the applied professional model has yet to be instituted”. His general conclusion was that among the reporting associations, a basic set of assumptions and values related the conduct of research were widely shared and that each

code reflected concerns related to part of the total situation. The low response rate from social science associations was due to the amount of time and resources needed for formulating such codes, the limited membership and authority of the association within the researchers, variations in availability of resources for undertaking social science research and the primary interest being science rather in the formalised procedures.

Putting together the findings and conclusion of this international survey, it is clear that while concerns for ethics were steadily rising in the social sciences and there were many shared understandings of the ethical standards among social scientists, the further developments were possible only with the increase in the institutional growth of the social sciences and their associations. Developments of last 30 years seem to indicate that there is such requisite growth of the organised structures of social scientists and therefore also formalisation of guidelines. The social science associations along with the Universities have shown more inclination to adopt ethical guidelines and regulations on research. A bulk of such development is still concentrated in the developed countries, but in last one decade there has been very positive developments in the rest of the world too. Social science research in health is one area of social science research that is increasingly showing trends towards some formalisation of guidelines. A part of the reason is the impact of globalisation of biomedical research, including clinical trials, and the increasing volume of social science research in health, particularly the applied research in the developing countries.

References:

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Beecher Henry K, “Ethics and clinical research”, in New England Journal of Medicine, Vol. 274, No. 24, June 16, 1966, pp. 1354-60

Bok Sissela Bok “Secrets: on the ethics of concealment and revelation”, New York: Vintage Books, 1984, 332 pages

Brandt Allan M, “Racism and research: The case of the Tuskegee syphilis study”, in Emanuel Ezekiel, et al (Ed.) “Ethical and regulatory aspects of clinical research”, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003

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