Debriefing in Deceptive Research: A Proposed New Procedure

Abstract

This study examines the effectiveness of a new debriefing procedure designed specifically to address possible negative consequences of participation in deceptive research. The new debriefing includes an extended educational procedure that enables participants to gain insight into relevant deceptive practices and how to recognize and deal effectively with them, and thus end their participation with a positive and beneficial learning experience. The usefulness of the new tool was analyzed in a suggestibility study in which we compared the effects of the standard debriefing and the new procedure in terms of participants' mood, self-esteem, and attitudes toward psychological experiments. The most important result was that at the end of the study subjects who received the new debriefing system expressed more positive mood and more positive attitudes toward research than those who received the standard debriefing system. The implications of these results for generalizing to other kinds of deception research are discussed.