Is the placebo effect deception?
A common feature of research investigating the placebo effect is deception of research participants about the nature of the research. This use of deception is considered necessary to understanding the placebo effect, but has received little systematic ethical attention.
Does the use of placebo involve unethical deception of the patient?
Placebo use, however, is criticized as being unethical for two reasons. First, placebos are supposedly ineffective (or less effective than “real” treatments), so the ethical requirement of beneficence (and “relative” nonmaleficence) renders their use unethical.
Why is it sometimes unethical to give a participant a placebo?
Placebo treatment can be considered unethical because researchers are tricking patients into thinking they are receiving a treatment when they are getting not benefits to the treatment they have.
Is it ethical to use placebo to treat patients?
According to the World Medical Association’s Declaration of Helsinki, which addresses ethical issues surrounding the use of human subjects in research, placebo use is acceptable when there is no proven acceptable treatment for the condition, when “for compelling and scientifically sound methodological reasons” it’s …
Is the use of deception in communication research justifiable?
The use of deception must be justified by its potential scientific value to the research. Deception can only be used with study components that involve minimal risks (as determined by the IRB). Whenever possible, researchers must debrief subjects about the deception.
How is deception used in psychological research?
Deception in research provides the opportunity for real reactions to be measured. If people are unaware of the goals of a study you are more likely to get an authentic response from participants, rather than subjects reacting how they believe they are supposed to behave.
Why is it ethical or unethical to ask people to enter a placebo controlled study like the one described?
Most people accept the use of placebo controls in trials for conditions with no effective treatment. However, PCTs raise ethical concerns when a proven effective treatment exists, since randomizing subjects to a placebo exposes them to the potential harms of non-treatment.
Why is deception needed in some researches?
Subject deception is typically used to promote scientific validity, with subjects provided with false or incomplete information about the research in order to obtain unbiased data with respect to the subjects’ attitudes and behavior when complete or truthful disclosure is expected to produce biased results.