Unobtrusive Measures: Nonreactive Research in the Social Sciences

What is needed is a set of criteria by which vsrious research techniques can be appraised morally. Each of the social sciences has attempted to develop a code of ethics for guidance in these matters. So far, however, these have suffered from the absence of a careful analysis of the problem. We need a specification of the multiple interests potentially threatened by social science research: the privacy of the individual, his freedom from manipulation, the protection of the sura of trust on which the society depends, and by no means least in importance, the good reputation of social science. The multiple methods presented here may do more than raise these questions for discussion. They may provide alternatives by which ethical criteria can be met without impinging on important interests of the research subjects. Some of the methods describwed here, such as the use of archival records and trace measures, may serve to avoid the problems of invasions of privacy by permitting the researcher to gain valuable information without ever identifying the individual actors of in any way manipulating them. If ethical considerations lead us to avoid participant observation, interviews, or eavesdropping in given circumstances, the novel methods described in this monograph may be of value not only in improving and supplementing our information but also in permitting ethically scrupulous social scientists to do their work effectively and to sleep better at night. --- excerpt from book's Preface