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The Costs of Deception: Evidence from Psychology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Andreas Ortmann  and
Ralph Hertwig
Andreas Ortmann*
Affiliation:
Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education, Charles University; Economics Institute, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prague, Czech Republic
Ralph Hertwig*
Affiliation:
Psychology Department, Columbia University, New York, USA; Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany
*
email: [email protected]; [email protected]
email: [email protected]; [email protected]
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Abstract

Recently, it has been argued that the evidence in social science research suggests that deceiving participants in an experiment does not lead to a significant loss of experimental control. Based on this assessment, experimental economists were counseled to lift their de facto prohibition against deception to capture its potential benefits. To the extent that this recommendation is derived from empirical studies, we argue that it draws on a selective sample of the available evidence. Building on a systematic review of relevant research in psychology, we present two major results: First, the evidence suggests that the experience of having been deceived generates suspicion that in turn is likely to affect the judgment and decision making of a non-negligible number of participants. Second, we find little evidence for the reputational spillover effects that have been hypothesized by a number of authors in psychology and economics (e.g., Kelman, H.C., 1967. Psychological Bulletin. 67, 1—11; Davis, D.D. and Holt, C.A., 1993. Experimental Economics. Princeton University Press, Princeton). Based on a discussion of the methodological costs and benefits of deception, we conclude that experimental economists’ prohibition of deception is a sensible convention that economists should not abandon.

Keywords

experimental economicsdeceptionreputational spillover effectsexperimental control

JEL classification

C91: Laboratory, Individual Behavior C72: Noncooperative Games
Type
Research Article
Information
Experimental Economics , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , October 2002 , pp. 111 - 131
Copyright
Copyright © 2002 Economic Science Association

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Footnotes

*

To whom correspondence should be addressed.

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