Twenty Years of Deception in Social Psychology

Abstract

During the decade 1959 to 1969 the percentage of studies using deception in the leading social psychological journal. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, rose from 41% to 66%1 Perhaps as a result of this dramatic increase, in the late 1960s a number of prominent social psychologists began to criticize the field's reliance on deception technology. To determine the effect of these critiques 1188 articles published in four leading social psychology journals between 1959 and 1979 were categorized according to use and type of deception. Use of deception did not decrease from 1969 to 1979.