Morality in Minimally Deceptive Environments

Abstract

Psychologists, economists, and philosophers have long argued that in environments where deception is normative, moral behavior is harmed. In this article, we show that individuals making decisions within minimally deceptive environments do not behave more dishonestly than in nondeceptive environments. We demonstrate the latter using an example of experimental deception within established institutions, such as laboratories and institutional review boards. We experimentally manipulated whether participants received information about their deception. Across three well-powered studies, we empirically demonstrate that minimally deceptive environments do not affect downstream dishonest behavior. Only when participants were in a minimally deceptive environment and aware of being observed, their dishonest behavior decreased. Our results show that the relationship between deception and dishonesty might be more complicated than previous interpretations have suggested and expand the understanding how deception might affect (im)moral behavior. We discuss possible limitations and future directions as well as the applied nature of these findings.

Informed Consent and Debriefing When Deceiving Participants: A Systematic Review of Research Ethics Guidelines

“…The main argument against authorized deception was that it might reduce study validity, which is also mentioned by several researchers (Dowrick et al, 2007;Finney, 1987;Gogtay et al, 2020;Holmes & Bennett, 1974;Martin & Katz, 2010). However, there is also some evidence that suggests that authorized deception leads to more appreciation by participants (Allen, 1983;Dowrick et al, 2007;Finney, 1987;Gogtay et al, 2020;Holmes & Bennett, 1974;Klein & Smith, 2004;Martin & Katz, 2010;Wiener & Erker, 1986) and that signaling the potential use of deception might not influence validity for all deceptive studies (Gerlach et al, 2019;Krawczyk, 2015;Mitkidis et al, 2022). Regarding conditions, some guidelines required ethics approval for a waiver of authorized deception.…”