Results

Milgram's Obedience Studies
James M. DuBois
In the early 1960’s, Stanley Milgram used deception to recruit subjects for a psychology experiment. Subjects were told that the research concerned the effect of punishment on learning, when in fact it studied obedience to authority.

Making Everyone Feel Like a Winner
Celia B. Fisher
To minimize distress and the potential for distrust of staff, investigators researching aggression in boys with conduct disorder do not disclose the purpose of the low-risk research but rather present the study activities as a game. Fisher presents this as an example of best practice.

Withholding Study Purpose
Emily E. Anderson and James M. DuBois
A researcher wants to test an intervention to prevent child abuse among pregnant women in drug treatment programs but feels that revealing the true aim of the intervention may upset women already in difficult life circumstances (and limit enrollment). She asks her institution’s IRB for permission to tell potential participants that the study is a parenting skills development rather than child abuse prevention program.

A "Modest" Proposal on Alcohol Experimentation
Peter Finn
Researchers want to examine the relative contributions of the pharmacological effects of alcohol and the belief that one has consumed alcohol on aggressive behavior in a controlled experiment. Researchers plan to deceive subjects regarding the type of beverage (alcoholic or non-alcoholic) they receive and the true purpose of the experiment. Following the experiment, subjects will be debriefed regarding the deception, the type of beverage they received, and the true purpose of the study.