Essay About Ethical Issues Of Deception And Psychological Research

Ethical Issues Of Deception In Psychological Research
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Ethical Issues of Deception in Psychological Research
Ethical issues are a major area for concern in psychological studies,
and that in some way or another ethical guidelines are compromised.
Deception is one of the most controversial aspects in psychological
research. The definition of the word deception is not always clear and
is defined differentially by different people. An example of this is
Hey (1998) who pointed out that Ðthere is a world of difference
between not telling participants things and telling them the wrong
things. On the other hand Adair, Dushenko and Lindsay (1985) define
deception in psychological research as: the provision of information
that actively misleads participants regarding some aspect of the
study. Christensen (1977) defines deception in psychological research
as an explicit misstatement of fact.
For the purpose of this essay I am going to use the definition of
deception cited in the Oxford English Dictionary. Here it defines
deception as untruthful, misleading and dishonesty.
The first reference to the ethics of deception to have appeared in
psychological research is credited to W.E. Vinacke in his 1954
American psychologist article entitled ÐDeceiving Experimental
Subjects. In that article he raised the question of the Ðproper
balance between the interests of science and the thoughtful treatment
of research subjects (Korn, 1997).
Despite Vinackes attempt to stimulate discussion in the field of such
ethical issues, the message was largely ignored. This was until nine
years later when the controversy surrounding Stanley Milgrams
obedience experiments (1963) came to light. As a result of these
experiments, Diane Baumrind (1985) began a vigorous campaign against
the use of deception in psychological research.
The controversy regarding the use of deception arises because it may
have an effect on participants willingness to take part in
psychological research. Indeed this controversy has resulted in much
research on this. However, the findings have been contradictory.
Some research has shown that the use of deception negatively affects
participants perception of researchers and psychology consequently
the likelihood that they will take part in psychological research
again, and whether they will complete the study they are participating
in. For example Oliansky (1991) reported that participants who had
been deceived in psychological research reported strong negative
feelings in that they said that they were unlikely to take part again.
Therefore this shows that the use of deception does affect
participants willingness to take part in psychological studies.
On the other hand there is evidence that people actually enjoy being
deceived and