Russel-Research-Method-in-Anthropology

Direct and Indirect Observation 443
urinals and made the measurements. The problem was, the observer couldn’t
hear flies unzipping and urine hitting the water from inside the stall—so the
researchers used a periscopic prism, trained on the area of interest, to make
the observations directly.
Personally, I doubt that many people would have objected to the study if
Middlemist and his colleagues had just lurked in the restroom and done simple,
unobtrusive observation. But when they contrived to make men urinate in
a specific place, when they contrived to manipulate the dependent variable
(urination time), and, above all, when they got that periscope into the act, that
changed matters. This is a clear case of invasion of privacy by researchers, in
my view.
In a severe critique of the research, Koocher (1977:120) said that ‘‘at the
very least, the design seems laughable and trivial.’’ Middlemist et al.
(1977:123) defended themselves, saying that ‘‘we believe . . . that the pilot
observation and the experiment together constitute an example of well-controlled
field research, adequate to test the null hypothesis that closeness has
no effect’’ on the duration of urination among males in public restrooms.
Actually, Middlemist et al.’s study design was anything but trivial. In fact, it
was quite elegant. Whether it was ethical is another matter, as is whether the
knowledge they were after was worth doing the experiment at all.
Passive Deception
Passive deception involves no experimental manipulation of informants to
get them to act in certain ways. Humphreys’s first, strictly observational study
(not the one where he used a pretext to interview people in their homes)
involved passive deception. He made his observations in public places where
he had every right to be in the first place. He took no names down, and there
were no data that could be traced to any particular individual. Humphreys
observed felonies, and that makes the case more complex. But in my opinion,
he had the right to observe others in public places, irrespective of whether
those observed believed that they would or would not be observed. What he
did with his observations—following people up by tracking them through
their license plates—is another matter.
Anthropologists use passive deception all the time. I have spent hours pretending
to be a shopper in department stores and have observed mothers who
are disciplining their children. I have played the role of a strolling tourist on
Mexican beaches (an easy role to play, since that was exactly what I was) and
recorded how American and Mexican families occupied beach space. I have
surreptitiously clocked the time it takes for people who were walking along
the streets of Athens (Greece), New York City, Gainesville (Florida), and