Experimental Economics, 5:111–131 (2002) c © 2002 Economic Science Association The Costs of Deception: Evidence from Psychology

Recently, it has been argued that the evidence in social science research suggests that deceiving participants in an experiment does not lead to a significant loss of experimental control. Based on this assessment, experimental economists were counseled to lift their de facto prohibition against deception to capture its potential benefits. To the extent that this recommendation is derived from empirical studies, we argue that it draws on a selective sample of the available evidence. Building on a systematic review of relevant research in psychology, we present two major results: First, the evidence suggests that the experience of having been deceived generates suspicion that in turn is likely to affect the judgment and decision making of a non-negligible number of participants. Second, we find little evidence for the reputational spillover effects that have been hypothesized by a number of authors in psycholog