Research is the foundation of all knowledge gained in psychology. We are bound to follow ethical guidelines for the treatment of human and animal subjects. It is necessary to inform participants about the nature of the study so that they may decide ahead of time whether or not they want to participate. However, if research involves purposeful deception (as long as it is not harmful, and NOT more extreme than they would encounter in their daily life), they cannot truly and completely inform them ahead of time–thus, deception does violate the issue of informed consent.
In one study, researchers wanted to uncover the factors that explain why people delay in getting treatment if they see signs for cancer. If they understood these relationship, then they could save lives. So, in the study, after giving participants a battery of assessments, they had been told that they had shown a marker in their saliva that might be indicative of a liver disease. Then, they subjected participants to other questions and procedures before telling them that they had been given false feedback (at the end of the study). For a while, participants might have been very frightened when receiving that feedback; however, the potential to uncover reasons why people delay in getting treatment could save future lives.
Do you think using deception in research is okay? Why or why not.
