Truth telling in subjects with information about experiments: Who is being deceived?

Assessing the adequacy of postexperimental inquiries in deception research and the factors that promote participant honesty

“…Participants completing the computerized postexperimental survey were not more likely to admit to receiving information about the study from the confederate, which conflicts with Newberry's (1973) findings. This might be explained by the fact that we did not phrase the question positively (e.g., "participants were paid to tell others about this study-did you hear anything about it?")…”

“…Postexperimental inquiry format Although Aronson et al (1990) suggested that the postexperimental inquiry should take place as an interview between participants and the experimenter, Newberry (1973) found that participants were more likely to admit to having received information about the study when questions were presented on a questionnaire rather than by the experimenter. Further, Nichols and Maner (2008) suggested that reduced experimenter-participant interaction could diminish demand on the participants.…”

“…They found that although awareness and admission rates were low, participants who were told that their answers were important for the sake of the scientific integrity of the study had higher admission rates. Newberry (1973) further examined factors that increased admission to having received information about the study before participating. Overall, he found that 30%-80% of participants lied about receiving information from a confederate.…”

Admission of suspicion as a function of information source: Tip-off vs. situational cues

“…The final interview question, explaining the purpose of the study and asking the subject whether he had recognized it, elicited only one affirmative response from 42 subjects. Interview data on (Levy, 1967;Golding & Lichtenstein, 1970;Newberry, 1973) must be viewed as questionable.…”

“…Golding and Lichtenstein (1970) had the confederate inform subjects about false heart rate feedback. In a study by Newberry (1973), the confederate supplied answers to problems the subjects were to solve in the experiment. In all of these studies, the subjects were asked at the end of the experiment whether they had been told anything.…”