Experimental economics and deception: A comment

Abstract

At a recent conference at which we were participants (the 1996 Amsterdam Workshop on Experimental Economics) one recurrent theme at a number of sessions was the issue of deception in economics experiments. Not withstanding some heated exchanges, it seemed clear that the predominant view among the participants was that deception in an experiment should be avoided. In the present paper Bonetti challenges this orthodox position claiming there is little evidence that deception has undesirable consequences, and there are gains from using deception. Consequently, a rigid methodological prohibition of deception is deemed ``unnecessary and dangerous''. To our knowledge this is the ®rst paper which addresses the topic systematically, and as such it represents an extremely useful contribution to an important and timely debate. On the other hand, we believe Bonetti underestimates the potential problems associated with deception and, in some cases, overstates the bene®ts. Correspondingly, this comment advocates a more cautious position, closer to that of the prohibitionists. There are two obvious functions of deception in relation to experimental design. Deception can be used either as a treatment variable or as a way of Journal of Economic Psychology 19 (1998) 403±409