Ethical issues of asking youth sensitive questions about aggressive and seriously violent behaviors

Ybarra, Michele, Friends, John, Langhinrichsen-Rohling, Jennifer, & Diener-West, Marie (2008, July). Ethical issues of asking youth sensitive questions about aggressive and seriously violent behaviors. Presented at the  International Society for Research on Aggression XVIII World Meeting, Budapest, Hungary.

Summary:

This presentation uses data from the Growing up with Media study to further the understanding of asking sensitive health questions to youth. A major gap in our understanding of the ethics of asking sensitive health questions to children, and therefore a major gap in our ability to address related concerns, is the impact these questions have on youth.

1. Do sensitive questions about violence make youth upset?

2. What about the questions make them upset?

Findings include:

-  Almost one in four youth 10-15 years of age were upset by our questions about violence

-  These youth were more likely younger (10 y.o. vs. 15 y.o.) and female

-  Victims of violence were not more likely to be upset

-  Proxy indicators of being upset did not suggest high rates of distress

The proxy rates of distress do not suggest youth had extremely negative responses to the survey.

Although answering questions about violence is upsetting (isn’t it ‘normal’ to be upset by thinking about murder?), responding to these survey questions does not appear to be particularly traumatizing or risky for youth.

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