Condemned to be meaningful

Non‐response in studies of men and infertility

Bibliographic Data

ID7394253
AuthorsM Lloyd (0000-0002-3193-7547, Victoria University of Wellington, corresponding author)
Year1996
Volume18
Issue4
Pages433-454
Publication date1996-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSociology of Health & Illness (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0141-9889 • E-ISSN: 1467-9566
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/1467-9566.ep10939057
OpenAlexW1993943485
LanguageEN
Citations received34
References cited37

Male infertility has been under‐researched, and in part this seems due to a strong reticence by men to talk to researchers about infertility. Rather than suggest possible features of male infertility that might lead to this reticence, this paper explores how researchers have themselves accounted for the high non‐ response rates. The analysis details the way in which social scientific reasoning about non‐response incorporates both existing knowledge about infertility and everyday reasoning about health and illness. It is suggested that this process is a variant of a pervasive form of commonsense reasoning ‐ the documentary method of interpretation. The interesting upshot of applying this method to non‐response, is that an absence of information is ‘condemned to be meaningful

Biology · Developmental psychology · Epistemology · Infertility · Interpretation (philosophy · Linguistics · Male infertility · Pregnancy · Process (computing · Computer Science · Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior · Gender Roles and Identity Studies · Philosophy · Psychology · Reproductive Health and Technologies · Social Psychology

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