Social Influence.

Deception is one of the many ethical issue that have been raised by social influence research. The BPS say that 'intentional deception of participants over the purpose and general nature of the investigation should be avoided whenever possible. Participants should never be deliberately misled without extremely strong scientific or medical justification.'.

Some forms of deception involve lying to participants about the nature of a study, such as Milgram's study on obedience to authority. Participants were told that they were taking part in a study of how punishment affects learning, when in fact the study was on whether ordinary people will obey a legitimate authority even when required to injure another person.

Other forms of deception involve the unfolding of important information that may effect participants willingness to take part in the study. An example of this is Zimbardo et al.'s prison stimulation experiment. Participants were not told all the ins and outs of the study, so they were not completely sure of what they were getting themselves in to. With full knowledge of all aspects of the study, many participants may have been less willing to partake.

One way of compensating for deception is debriefing. This is when you inform participants, after the research has been carried out, of the true nature of the study. In general the aim of this is to restore the participant to the state they were in at the start of the experiment.

Informed consent is another issue raised. This is when participants either agree or refuse to participate in a research investigation based on comprehensive information concerning the nature and purpose of the research and their role in it. The BPS say that wherever possible the investigator should inform all participants of the objectives of the investigation, all aspects of the research or interference that may reasonably be expected to influence their willingness to participant. They should also explain all other aspects that participants enquire.

A way of dealing with the issue of informed consent is through the use of prior general consent. This is when researcher requests consent before the study takes place. Gamson et al. asked participants to give consent for a range of studies, including a study which would involve deception, which meant that they were generally giving consent to being deceived.

Another way of dealing with the issue of informed consent is by using presumptive consent this is when the researchers gain consent from others, not the participants. If these others say that the study is acceptable than the researchers assume that the participants would too if they were asked.

Protection of participants from psychological harm is when research participants are protected from undue risk during an investigation. This could include embarrassment, loss of dignity or threats to a person's self-esteem as a result of participation.

One way to deal with this ethical issue is by anticipating harm and stopping the study, as did Zimbardo et al. and Gamson et al..

It also may be possible to simply ask people how they might behave in the situation to be studied, instead of a study. Although, Milgram did ask people how they would behave and their answers reflect their real behaviour.