Is the Use of Deception in Social Science Research on Human Participants Justified?

To ensure that a researcher’s enthusiasm for knowledge and understanding doesn’t let them get carried away, clear guidelines for ethical behaviour in research, a Code of Ethics, have been established by governments, institutions and various professional societies such as the American Psychological Association(APA), the British Psychological Society (BPS) and the Psychological Society of Ireland (PSI).

A review of the proposed participants of the study will ensure high-risk groups (if any) will be considered as per the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research (‘National Statement’; NHMRC, 2007). While some of these high-risk

Two Diaries, Donald Vining’s A Gay Diary Vol. Two and Martin Duberman’s Gay in the Fifties look into the everyday life of gay males in the post-World War II Era. While World War II increased freedom for men to sexually explore within the male community, post-World War II extended the freedom of exploration but also created a subsequent backlash against homosexual practices. Vining and Duberman’s diaries document an extension of gay freedoms in the post-World War II period. Although Vining and Duberman give contrasting accounts of their lives as gay males in the postwar period, common themes could be drawn in the form of friendships, sexual activity, relationships, and backlash by heteronormative society.

Respect for human dignity includes two rights; the right to self-determination and the right to full disclosure. When conducting a research study these two rights must be maintained to ensure that the participants are not coerced into participation and that they are making the choice of their own free will. Patients must be provided with all the information necessary to make an informed decision and voluntarily participate. No deception or concealed data collection can be done because it will violate the patients’ rights.

A year after he completed his observation in the tearooms, Humphreys decided to visit the men whose personal information he documented (UCSB). Humphreys assumed a new identity and posed as a social health worker (UCSB). He asked the men about their personal lives and sexual lives (UCSB). He found that 54% of the men were married with kids and 14% identified as gay (UCSB). He also noted that the lack of birth control limited the sexual activity between the married couples (UCSB). The married couples then turned to tearooms to achieve their sexual release (UCSB). The conclusion, his infringement on others privacy for scientific research raised a few questions about ethics.

Our study will comply with standard ethical research procedures. We will obtain informed consent from our participants before they participate in our study. Our potential participants will be fully informed about what will happen during our study; in addition, they will understand the effects that our study will have on them and our research (Grinnell, Unrau, and Williams, 2014). We will not use bribery, deception, threats, or any other forms of coercion in order to gain participants for our study. The physical/emotional safety of the participants will come before the research; therefore, we will adhere to all ethical research procedures.

Informed consent most closely interrelates to the guideline of deception. Deception is possibly the most controversial and also the most important aspects of research in psychology. Deception occurs when the experimenter withholds information about the study or the true aim of the study. In psychological research, it is important to use the least amount of deception possible. In all cases the researcher must take careful consideration to the benefits of any deception. If deception is carried out the participant is likely to experience: a feeling of being uncomfortable, negative feelings towards the research, and suspicion of the research. However, sometimes deception is necessary for the researcher because if the participants understand the aim of the study they could act differently according to the aim of the study. For instance, in memory research the researcher can inform the aim of the study because the participants do not know what they will be asked to remember.

Researchers should be honest about who they are and be able to answer questions about the research they are conducting. It is understandable that one might want to put themselves in another person’s shoes and try to connect and understand that population, but when conducting a research, it is not ethical to deceive participants by portraying to be someone that you are not. “It is important to demonstrate an ethic

Psychological research has been growing and developing new ways of studying human behavior, collecting knowledge and expanding our understanding of our nature. For instance, studies involving human subjects presented risks for violation of ethical research guidelines, by pushing the limits of human experience (Kim, 2012). Throughout history, there have been numerous studies that elevated this concern, such as the Milgram Experiment of 1963. One of the major ethical raised was that it lacked informed consent from the participants and eventually raised the issue of protecting human subjects. This paper examines the ethical compliance in psychological research and emphasizes the importance of ethics and professionalism by analyzing different

It is of utmost importance that ethical standards are overseen by a governing body like the Institutional Review Board (IRB) to hold researchers to ethical standards (Smith & Davis, 2010). The researchers of this study did have the approval process from the IRB. All the names were changed as a safeguard in this study as well on the final data collection so as not to violate anyone’s privacy. This could also be seen as another strength to the study giving no one a reason to lie.

Our country was founded on certain moral principles. The moral principles which guide our lives are referred to as ethics. These ethics have an impact on how we interact with the world around us and shape our personalities; this happens even if we do not realize their immediate impact. It is for this very reason that ethics in psychological research became necessary. “One may also define ethics as a method, procedure, or perspective for deciding how to act and for analyzing complex problems and issues” (Resnik, 2011). We are expected to behave or be treated a particular way in society, therefore we should be granted certain ethical treatments in regards to research.

The Tearoom Trade Observation was an observational research on homosexual acts being performed in public restrooms during the 1960's by Laud Humphreys. Humphrey's dissertation titled Tearoom Trade was a study about where men go to experience same-sex encounters. Most of the studies encounters took place in public restrooms. After the publication of his book in 1970, although married to a woman, Humphrey felt comfortable enough to "come out" as one of the first sociologist that identified as gay.

I’ve learned that it’s not necessarily what we find out from research but, where we gathered the information. We should be careful with how we find out information. With all information gathered, we must also gather participants. It is essential that those whom take on the role of scientific researcher of psychology that the guidelines of the American Psychological Association’s Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct be followed (Cozby & Bates, 2015, p. 47). Confidentiality and privacy is very important within research. Confidentiality is an issue when a researcher has assured subjects that the collected data are only accessible to people with permission, generally only the researcher (Cozby & Bates, 2015, p. 50). One major step to ensure proper treatment is to gather informed consents. An informed consent allows all participants to understand all parts of research might influence their active decision of

Laud Humphreys, a sociologist, was dissatisfied with the idea of producing a study so mundane that only focuses on individuals who engage in deviant activity but nothing about how they participate in the deviant world. Humphreys found that the idea of deviant behaviour explored in terms of sociology explains it as organised behaviour that is important to the individuals that engage in the activity, yet not seen as a subculture. Therefore, Humphreys sets out to analyse the personal significance of the Tearoom Trade to the participant. And this is the foundation of

Conducting a study using humans as participants raises a variety of ethical concerns. This is why it is necessary to inform the participants of the purpose of the interview or focus group and what it plans to accomplish. Also, the privacy of each participant must be respected when publishing or distributing all research findings. If these requirements are not met, the study being conducted will in turn become unethical.