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CHAPTER 3: Ethical Issues in the Conduct of Psychological Research 75Just as illusions are often created in real-lifesituations, in other situations, Milgram points out,there can be a suspension of a general moralprinciple. If we learn of a crime, we are ethicallybound to report it to the authorities. On the otherhand, a lawyer who is given information by a clientmust consider this information privileged evenif it reveals that the client is guilty. Physicians performvery personal examinations of our bodies.Although it is morally permissible in a physician’soffice, the same type of behavior would not becondoned outside the office. Milgram argues that,in the interest of science, psychologists shouldoccasionally be allowed to suspend the moralprinciple of truthfulness and honesty.Those who defend deception point to studiesshowing that participants typically do not appearto react negatively to being deceived (e.g.,Christensen, 1988; Epley & Huff, 1998; Kimmel,1996). Although people’s “suspiciousness” aboutpsychological research may increase, the overalleffects seem to be small (see Kimmel, 1998).Nevertheless, the bottom line according to thosewho argue for the continued use of deception iswell summarized by Kimmel (1998): “An absoluterule prohibiting the use of deception in all psychologicalresearch would have the egregious consequenceof preventing researchers from carryingout a wide range of important studies” (p. 805).No one in the scientific community suggests thatdeceptive practices be taken lightly; however, formany scientists the use of deception is less noxious(to use Kelman’s term) than doing withoutthe knowledge gained by such studies.Do you think deception should be used in psychologicalresearch?their false confessions, they probably would not have confessed. The disclosurerequired for informed consent would have made it impossible to studythe likelihood that people would make a false confession.Although deception is sometimes justified to make it possible to investigateimportant research questions, deceiving participants for the purpose of gettingthem to participate in research that involves more than minimal risk is alwaysunethical. As stated in the Ethics Code, “Psychologists do not deceive prospectiveparticipants about research that is reasonably expected to cause physical pain or severeemotional distress” (Standard 8.07b).A goal of research is to observe individuals’ normal behavior. A basic assumptionunderlying the use of deception is that sometimes it’s necessary toconceal the true nature of an experiment so that participants will behave asthey normally would, or act according to the instructions provided by the experimenter.Problems may arise, however, with frequent and casual use ofdeception (Kelman, 1967). If people believe that researchers often mislead participants,they may expect to be deceived when participating in a psychologyexperiment. Participants’ suspicions about the research may prevent them frombehaving as they normally would (see Box 3.2). This is exactly the opposite ofwhat the researchers hope to achieve. Interestingly, Epley and Huff (1998) directlycompared reactions of participants who were told or not told in a debriefingfollowing the experiment that they had been deceived. Those who weretold of the deception were subsequently more suspicious about future psychologicalresearch than were participants who were unaware of the deception. Asthe frequency of online research increases, it is important that researchers giveparticular attention to the use of deception, not only because of the potentialfor increasing the distrust of researchers by society’s members, but also becausedeception has the potential to “poison” a system (i.e., the Internet) that peopleuse for social support and connecting with others (Skitka & Sargis, 2005).