What is considered deception in experimental economics?

In experimental economics there is a norm against using deception. But precisely what constitutes deception is unclear. While there is a consensus view that providing false information is not permitted, there are also “gray areas” with respect to practices that omit information or are misleading wit...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Experimental economics : a journal of the Economic Science Association Vol. 25; no. 2; pp. 385 - 412
Main Authors: Charness, Gary, Samek, Anya, van de Ven, Jeroen
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: New York Springer US 01.04.2022
Springer Nature B.V
Subjects:
Behavioral/Experimental Economics
Deception
Economic theory
Economic Theory/Quantitative Economics/Mathematical Methods
Economics
Economics and Finance
Experimental economics
Experimental methods
Game Theory
Microeconomics
Operations Research/Decision Theory
Original Paper
Respondents
Social and Behav. Sciences
Student attitudes
Students
Deception
B49
Attitudes
C80
C91
Experimental methodology
C93
C92
ISSN:1386-4157, 1573-6938
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:In experimental economics there is a norm against using deception. But precisely what constitutes deception is unclear. While there is a consensus view that providing false information is not permitted, there are also “gray areas” with respect to practices that omit information or are misleading without an explicit lie being told. In this paper, we report the results of a large survey among experimental economists and students concerning various specific gray areas. We find that there is substantial heterogeneity across respondent choices. The data indicate a perception that costs and benefits matter, so that such practices might in fact be appropriate when the topic is important and there is no other way to gather data. Compared to researchers, students have different attitudes about some of the methods in the specific scenarios that we ask about. Few students express awareness of the no-deception policy at their schools. We also briefly discuss some potential alternatives to “gray-area” deception, primarily based on suggestions offered by respondents.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 14
ISSN:1386-4157
1573-6938
DOI:10.1007/s10683-021-09726-7