ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses how scientific collaboration groups and other informal interaction structures may affect the "strict" and "permissive" patterns discerned among biomedical researchers. It proceeds by first reporting the methods and instruments used to collect data. The chapter suggests some of the ways that informal structures, may influence expressed standards and actual behavior in the use of human subjects. It also suggests certain effects that informal interaction structures, in interaction with certain socialization patterns, may have on actual behavior as reported. The chapter describes informal colleague interaction, through the processes of collaboration, ethical consultation, and decision-making, has possible and actual effects on standards and behavior. It identifies potential agents of informal social control in the immediate social environment of biomedical researchers and to measure the likelihood that they will facilitate or hinder a researcher who would engage in a study with risks in excess of the benefits for the human subjects involved.
