ETHICAL CONTROVERSIES REGARDING THE USE OF DECEPTION IN THE PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH

The deception of participants - implying the transgression of the informed consent norm, essential in the biomedical research - has generated numerous critiques in all the research fields which involve human participants. In Psychology, it has been accepted upon certain conditions inspired by the utilitarian calculus of the costs versus the scientific gains of the study in all the versions of the research ethics code elaborated by the American Psychological Association. This code represents the main reference point in setting the acceptability limits of the worldwide empirical research methodologies. This acceptance of deception stems, at least partially, from its frequent use in the studies developed in the dominant trend of psychology, even from the beginnings of its elaboration. These political aspects of psychological science with consequences on ethical regulations are accompanied by an empirical level of debating between the critics and the defenders of the practice of deception. Thus, the specificities of the field created the circumstances in which all ethical debates regarding this practice are accompanied by empirical arguments, derived mostly from studies investigating its psychological consequences on participants. The article presents a synthesis of these empirically based ethical controversies, concerning, among others, the benefits of the deceiving procedures and their negative effects on participants, the limitation versus the promotion of their autonomy, the decrease or increase in validity of the studies using it. Given the relative ambiguity, induced by the plurality of ethical stances and empirical arguments as well as the conditioned legitimacy of this practice instituted by the psychological research ethics code - the final decision concerning its use represents the psychologist's responsibility, who has the complicated task to estimate the parameters of the costs / benefits balance in each particular case.