The main goal of ethics in social research is to ensure that there is no harm done to human subjects through obtaining informed consent that indicates the member is informed of risks and is involved voluntarily

Question

Sometimes researchers wish to study subjects without obtaining informed consent. What justifications can they use for this breach of ethical doctrines?
What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

If the researcher believes that the benefit to the scientific community or the ultimate social good is greater than the risk incurred to participants by researching their behaviors without obtaining informed consent, they justify not obtaining it. Some researchers believe that there is a fundamental difference between those who volunteer to participate in research and those who do not volunteer their population. To them, obtaining informed consent is limiting the population studied, and covert observation of those who do not volunteer would be required to obtain a fully representative sample. Researchers suggest that often when informed consent is obtained, participants are manipulated or coerced into "volunteering." Researchers also offer that especially when studying public officials or the elite, the accountability of subjects increases when they are aware of being studied. This is similar to the Hawthorne effect, in which research participants behave differently when they know a researcher is watching them. Additionally, elite populations are less likely to give consent to be studied, which results in an overstudying of disadvantaged populations that researchers have easy access to study.