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Deception

Its Use and Abuse in the Social Sciences

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Handbook of Research Ethics and Scientific Integrity

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Abstract

Deception is a controversial and emotive area, which is strongly associated with the transgression, violation, and breaching of research integrity. Deception has been object of both fear and fascination for many researchers and practitioners for a lengthy period of time. For some, deception runs counter to the established principle of informed consent and hence has no place in ethical decision-making. However, for others, deception does have a rich role to play, albeit submerged, in the critical imagination and toolkit of the researcher. Deception occupies a classic love or loathe position in social research, which often results in extreme and hyper responses from its audiences on both sides. For me, deception can be justified and has been successfully used in various research settings across the social sciences to gain rich insider knowledge and creatively manage the problem of artificiality. It has been long demonized, maligned, and stigmatized in various research communities and is under used. This chapter shall frame the usage of deception in different contexts-popular culture, occupational and social scientific. The author shall explore the diaspora of classical and contemporary exemplars of deception followed by some reflections on the longitudinal use of deception in his covert sociological study of bouncers in the night-time economy of Manchester. The chapter shall also examine the increasing ethical regulation of deception as well as investigate the future landscape for its use and abuse.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK

    David Calvey

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  1. David Calvey
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Correspondence to David Calvey .

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  1. Chatelaillon Plage, France

    Ron Iphofen

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Calvey, D. (2019). Deception. In: Iphofen, R. (eds) Handbook of Research Ethics and Scientific Integrity. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76040-7_15-1

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