Ethical Principles Relating to Others in the Research Process

Two topics in research ethics that tend to be underrepresented in the literature are harm to non-participants and harm to the researcher.

Non-participants

Often, consideration is not paid to those who might be affected by the outcomes of a piece of research, but who don’t participate in it directly. For example, if large-scale research subsequently influences a government’s social policies, such as those relating to education and health, non-participants’ lives could be greatly affected. If research has not been conducted properly—perhaps it is not reliable or valid, results were falsified, or participants were coerced into giving specific answers—very real harm can follow, even affecting the general population.  

The Researcher

Potential harm to the researcher ought to fall within the sphere of research ethics. This makes sense insofar as it would be unethical for research to proceed if the researcher were likely to be significantly endangered by it. For example, if a researcher wanted to test the comparative safety of two different vehicles when driven into a wall at 60 miles per hour, it would be unethical to allow the researcher to act as the test dummy. A slightly less ridiculous example relates to researchers carrying out interviews in unknown people’s homes: To mitigate potential risk, the researcher might agree to report their location to a supervisor at several predetermined times throughout the day. If they fail to check in, the supervisor will contact them. If this fails, a search will begin.

These kinds of safety issues, usually considered in research study protocols, are designed to protect the safety of the researcher, making the research more ethically sound.