Deceiving participants about the goals or content of a study is permitted in psychological research but is banned in economics journals and subject pools; experiments show that this ban is not necessary

Krasnow, Max, Rhea M. Howard, and Adar Eisenbruch. 2018. “The Importance of Being Honest?.” PsyArXiv. September 12. doi:10.31234/osf.io/9rsth

Abstract: Deceiving participants about the goals or content of a study is permitted in psychological research but is banned in economics journals and subject pools. This ban is intended to protect a public good: if experiencing deception causes participants to be suspicious in future studies, and suspicion influences their behavior, then the entire field suffers. We report a survey on psychologists and economists’ attitudes towards deception (N=568), and a large, non-deceptive multi-site study in which we measured participants’ histories, suspicion levels, and behavior in four common economic tasks (N=636). Economists reported wide ranging negative attitudes towards deceptive methods and support for the deception ban. However, the results of the behavioral study undercut the rationale of the deception ban: participants’ present suspicion unrelated to past experiences of deception, and suspicious participants behaved identically to credulous participants. We conclude that banning deceptive methods cannot be justified as the protection of a public good.