What a Tangled Web We Weave: Ethical and Legal Implications of Deception in Recruitment

Deception in human subject research is neither uncommon nor prohibited. The use of deception in the recruitment phase of clinical research has received relatively little attention. Given that informed consent is foundational to human subject research, the practice of misrepresenting the study purpose in clinical research would seem to contradict one of the fundamental tenets of ethical human subjects research. Using the example of prodromal psychosis, this article the ethical and legal implications of deception in recruitment and the sufficiency of current guidance on the practice when the study involves a stigmatizing condition, the collection of genetic samples, or both. I conclude that when these two elements are present, deception should only be used when absolutely necessary and, if used, researchers should be required to debrief participants before the collection of genetic samples and give particular attention to minimizing risks of privacy breaches.     

Ethical and Regulatory Challenges in Psychophysiology and Neuroscience-Based Technology for Determining Behavior

In the past three decades, there has been an explosion in research to understand the mechanisms of brain function. Recent advances in psychophysiology and neuroscience, while still limited, have sparked great interest in developing technologies that could peer into the brain and be used to identify or indicate certain behaviors. The polygraph (lie detector) represents an old technology used for discerning clues to the human brain; functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) represents one of the newest efforts. The use of these technologies in intelligence and counterintelligence in the field without validation represents a major concern about its usefulness. Both research on this new technology and subsequent use on public raise ethical challenges. This article will address the overall ethical issues associated with these new technologies. The report identifies the ethical and cultural challenges in conducting research on these new tools, explores the possibility of using current U.S. regulatory requirements regarding drugs and devices as a model for regulating these new technologies, and suggests approaches for the future.     

The Epistemic Integrity of NASA Practices in the Space Shuttle Program

This article presents an account of epistemic integrity and uses it to demonstrate that the epistemic integrity of different kinds of practices in NASA's Space Shuttle Program was limited. We focus on the following kinds of practices: (1) research by working engineers, (2) review by middle-level managers, and (3) communication with the public. We argue that the epistemic integrity of these practices was undermined by production pressure at NASA, i.e., the pressure to launch an unreasonable amount of flights per year. Finally, our findings are used to develop some potential strategies to protect epistemic integrity in aerospace science.     

How children tell a (prosocial) lie from an (ironic) joke: The role of shared knowledge

Understanding counterfactual utterances is a major challenge for children, because of the many ways in which they can be interpreted (pretence, errors, figures of speech, lies). In the present study, 7-year-olds and adults determined whether counterfactual utterances were prosocial lies or irony, depending on whether the counterfactuality was known only to the speaker (unshared knowledge) or to both interlocutors (shared knowledge). When the counterfactuality was shared by the interlocutors, both the 7-year-olds and the adults were less likely to interpret the speaker's counterfactual utterance as an attempted lie, and more likely to conclude that the speaker was being ironic. Adults were better than children at distinguishing irony from lies, but both age groups exhibited the same response pattern, namely a bias toward lying. This bias did not prevent the adults from deciding that the speaker was being ironic when the counterfactuality was shared, whereas children responded at chance level. In children, the association between task performance and theory-of-mind skills was nonsignificant, with a very small effect size. We discuss the possibility that, contrary to widespread belief, distinguishing irony from lies does not necessarily involve theory of mind (ToM).     

Data-Intensive Science and Research Integrity

In this commentary, we consider questions related to research integrity in data-intensive science and argue that there is no need to create a distinct category of misconduct that applies to deception related to processing, analyzing, or interpreting data. The best way to promote integrity in data-intensive science is to maintain a firm commitment to epistemological and ethical values, such as honesty, openness, transparency, and objectivity, which apply to all types of research, and to promote education, policy development, and scholarly debate concerning appropriate uses of statistics.     

What causes more mistrust: profile owners deleting user-generated content or website contributors masking their identities?

People regularly rely on user-generated contributions to websites to inform their opinions about people, companies, organizations, and products. This study examines how two website affordances uniquely affect the evaluation of user-generated content. Specifically, an experiment was conducted that varied whether a website (a) affords profile owners the ability to delete user-generated contributions or (b) verifies the identity of users who post evaluations of profile owners. The results suggest that although deleting user-generated content is viewed as more problematic, both forms of information control independently affect how viewers evaluate a website and the content it hosts. The findings help establish the conditions under which certain forms of information control differentially produce uncertainty and mistrust and thus have direct implications for warranting theory.     

A new model of the development of deception: Disentangling the role of false‐belief understanding in deceptive ability

“Deception” is defined predominantly as the intentional attempt to create false‐beliefs in others. However, the intentionality behind early acts of deception and its relation to false‐belief understanding remain unresolved. In this article, we offer a three‐stage theoretical model of the development of deception in human ontogeny. We posit that at any age, human deception is an intentional action, but its form changes according to the level of the deceiver's intentionality. As the primary function of deception is to influence the behaviour of others, we argue that first‐stage deceptions‐in‐action involves only in the analysis of behaviours and perceptual access, not beliefs. In our view, the ability to deceive and false‐belief understanding are eventually inter‐connected, but false‐belief understanding is not essential for the earliest form of deception. Based on empirical findings, which suggest that by observing the results of early deceptions children build their knowledge of mental states as causes of human actions, we claim that the second stage of deception is representational deception. Further, as the understanding of beliefs becomes more advanced, the effectiveness of children's deception increases, and new forms of reflective deception (the third stage) emerge. Future directions for research are outlined, and limitations of the current model are discussed.     

Family Background in Relation to Deceptive Ability and Understanding of the Mind

The purpose of this study was to determine whether social factors might be linked with the development of certain aspects of deception. Fifty-seven children aged between 4 and 5 years were assessed for their ability to be convincing in an act of deception (expressive deception) and also for their understanding that minds are susceptible to deception (theory of mind). The mothers of 34 of the children completed a questionnaire which provided information on socio-economic status, parenting style, parental stress and family structure. The results revealed significant associations with family background and deceptive ability. Stepwise multiple regression analyses, controlling for age, identified socio-economic status as a predictor of understanding that the mind is susceptible to deception (theory of mind). In contrast, single parent stress emerged as the major predictor of variance in expressive deception. Deceptive socialisation practices specific to single parents were considered. Implications for the dissimilar developmental pathways of theory of mind and expressive performance in deception are discussed.     

THE IMPACT OF DECEPTION AND SUSPICION ON DIFFERENT HAND MOVEMENTS

The present experiment examined the relationship between different types of discourse linked hand movements and deception. Hand gestures were experimentally studied during truth telling and deception, and in situations with either weak or strong suspicion. Participants (128 Italian psychology students) were interviewed twice about the possession of an object. In one interview they were asked to lie and in the other asked to tell the truth (veracity factor). In both conditions, suspicion was raised after the interview: Participants were accused of lying by the interviewer and asked to repeat their account a second time (suspicion factor). Results indicate that lying was associated with a decrease in deictic gestures, and an increase in metaphoric gestures (main effect of veracity). Also a decrease in self-adaptor gestures was found. Strong suspicion was associated with an increase in metaphoric, rhythmic, and deictic gestures and a decrease in self-adaptor, emblematic, and cohesive gestures (main effect of suspicion). No interaction effect was found. Letizia Caso is affiliated with the Department of Human Sciences, University of Bergamo, Sede di S. Agostino, Piazzale della Fara 2, Bergamo, Italy. Fridanna Maricchiolo and Marino Bonaiuto are affiliated with the Department of Socialization and Developmental Psychology, University of Rome “La Sapienza”, via dei Marsi, 78, Rome, Italy. Aldert Vrij and Samantha Mann are affiliated with the Department of Psychology, University of Portsmouth, King Henry Building, Portsmouth, United Kingdom. Address correspondence to Letizia Caso Department of Human Sciences, University of Bergamo, Sede di S. Agostino, piazzale della Fara 2, Bergamo, Italy, e-mail: letizia.caso@uniroma1.it.     

“机器能否被骗”之再探讨

我国法律对"机器能否被骗"没有明确规定,相关立法存在矛盾;学界的理论探讨局限于"机器没有意识,是不可能被骗"的事实层面,将机器这种"物"提高到法律关系主体的程度,不够合理。对机器的功能及法律性质进行分类研究表明,机器背后的掌控者能够被骗,符合普通诈骗罪的犯罪构成要件,因而,我国在现有的法律框架下,没有增设使用计算机诈骗罪的必要。