ABSTRACT
This chapter explores adult South African women's and men's motivations for participating in gender-based violence (GBV) research. It also explores the role the gender plays in participants' perceptions of risks and benefits in partaking in the studies and the perceived psychological impact of answering sensitive questions and adverse experiences of research participation. The chapter highlights the implications of the findings for research ethics guidelines and researchers who do GBV work. The study reports both positive and negative emotional responses. Some participants report distress as a result of talking about painful and traumatic experiences. Many clinical trials report altruism as a motivation for participation. The findings on the complexity of altruism reflect in the literature where there is a lack of definitional clarity on the concept and no consensus on what is meant by altruism as a human behavior.
