Using Deception Ethically Practical Research Guidelines for Researchers and Reviewers

This article reviews highlights in the literature on existing recommendations for ethical use of deception in psychological research We conclude that ethical guidelines and aspirational statements set out by research policies and advisory panels on ethics must eventually be operationalized into concrete terms when introducing deception into a research design Specific directives for using deception are especially important for new researchers developing projects and also for university/departmental reviewers who are being asked to evaluate the ethical standing of proposed research We offer a checklist designed to cultivate the understanding of junior researchers and to facilitate the review process by instantiating the relevant general guidelines into a set of Y/N questions about Intended research Finally, the article presents empirical data from researchers and ethics reviewers who provided end-user evaluations of the tool