Professor Carter has been researching the relationships between juvenile felony recidivism and various factors relating to nuclear family organization and processes. He has Youth Authority and IRB approval to interview incarcerated youths, their family members, social workers, and correctional facilties personnel. In assessing the benefits inherent to this kind of research the IRB agreed that each group surveyed would benefit in different ways from the research. It was supposed that the incarcerated youth would benefit more from the process of the research than the results, while the professional staffs could conceivably benefit more from the results, but experience some additional risks that neither the youth or their families would. The youth would soon be older and out of the age group under consideration; the professionals would be giving up information about their attitudes which might be at odds with the recommendations for adjustments to the system, although all professionals agreed that a lighter load would be preferable.
Within one research project the ethical consideration of beneficence may be applied in many different ways.
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