Deception in marketing research: Ethical, methodological, and disciplinary implications

Abstract Although marketing researchers often find it necessary to deceive their research participants, little attention has been given within marketing to the ethical issues underlying the use of deception or to the potential consequences of deceptive research practices. This paper provides a conceptual starting point for developing a more complete understanding of deception in marketing research, including an ethical analysis from the viewpoint of consequentialist and deontological theories of moral reasoning. A research agenda is outlined that draws on the extensive behavioral science literature on this topic and includes empirical questions relevant to the ethical, methodological, and disciplinary implications of using deceptive practices in marketing research. Deception in Marketing Research: Ethical, Methodological, and Disciplinary Implications Despite a growing focus on the ethical issues inherent in the investigation of human participants, academic researchers in marketing have given relatively scant attention to the uses of ethically questionable research practices, such as deception, the invasion of privacy, and breaches of confidentiality. This inattention to the rightness and potential impact of research practices stands in stark contrast to the situation in related disciplines, such as psychology and sociology, where systematic attempts to assess the implications of both ethical procedures (such as informed consent, debriefing, and protection of anonymity) and ethically sensitive practices (such as misrepresentation of the research purpose and the use of confederates) have been extensive. In psychology, particular attention has been directed to the frequency, intensity, and impact of deceptions employed by psychologists over time, as tangible indications of the extent to which research methods have been altered by ethical requirements Frequently researched topics in psychology, such as conformity, prejudice, aggression, helping behavior, sexuality, and maladaptive behavior require naïve research participants in order to assess their unbiased, natural responses. Deception may be 4 considered necessary in some behavioral research because if researchers were to reveal the exact substance of the study, they would run the risk of distorting participants' reactions and ultimately limiting the applicability of their research findings. The employment of deception can be seen as a possible solution to the problem of subject reactivity; in certain situations, deception has the capacity to improve the validity of an investigation by diminishing the likelihood that subjects' behaviors have been influenced by certain thoughts or motivations associated with participation in the study. Deception, it is sometimes argued, provides additional methodological advantages for the researcher. Depending upon the focus of the investigation, it can elicit more spontaneous behavior from participants than otherwise might be the case in a laboratory setting and it can increase the researcher's degree of methodological control over the experimental situation. Deceptive procedures allow researchers to manipulate and control the variables of interest with much greater facility by contriving the precise conditions under which their participants respond. Marketing researchers are not immune from such methodological considerations and often find it necessary to deceive research participants about various aspects of their investigations, including the study's purpose, research materials, interview length, and the like. The consequences of such deceptive research practices are of growing concern in light of evidence indicating that marketing researchers frequently deceive their research participants and that the employment of these practices actually has risen over recent decades (Kimmel, in press; 5 The systematic evaluation of deceptive research procedures is essential to a discipline characterized by the increasing use of these practices. As such, the purpose of this paper is to serve as a conceptual starting point for addressing the implications of a continued reliance on ethically sensitive research practices in marketing research, with special attention given to deception. We begin by describing the potential consequences inherent in the utilization of deception, including its methodological and disciplinary implications. We then provide an ethical analysis of deception within the framework of consequentialist and deontological theories of moral philosophy. To conclude, we offer recommendations for improved research practice and suggest a research agenda. Identifying the Extent of Deception in Marketing Research and its Potential Effects Prior to an ethical evaluation of deception and the formulation of a research agenda for assessing its implications for marketing research, it is first useful to examine evidence as to the extent to which deceptive procedures are used in the discipline and to consider their potential short-and long-term effects. Evidence of the Use of Deception While some observers (e.g., The modest rise in the overall proportion of deception studies noted in Kimmel's analysis corresponded to an observed increase in experimental and laboratory research over the same time span. This is hardly surprising given that in the controlled environment of a laboratory, variables of interest to researchers typically can be more carefully manipulated than in natural settings, and this increase in control facilitates the creation of fictional environments through active deceptions. Together, these findings provide evidence of two related disciplines apparently moving in opposite directions in terms of ethical and methodological research practices, which in part may be explained by varying levels of self-evaluation relative to ethical issues and shifting emphases in theory (Kimmel, in press; Potential Effects of Deception Although there is an ample body of psychological research on the consequences of deceiving research participants, it must be emphasized that while many of the issues are similar across disciplines, the effects may not be. This is primarily because there are differences in both the number and kind of deceptive procedures employed in psychological and marketing research. For example, marketing researchers are less apt than psychologists to use deceptions that are relevant to the fundamental beliefs and values of research 8 participants, but rather deceptions that pertain to peripheral factors such as the research sponsor or study purpose When considering the potential effects of deception in marketing research it is important to recognize that they may be positive (i.e., beneficial to recipients) or negative (i.e., harmful to recipients); moreover, the effects may be short-or long-term and immediate or delayed. For example, a research participant may be initially unaffected by the awareness that she was duped into believing that a fictitious company had sponsored a research study, but may experience a short-term loss of self-esteem when later reading a magazine article about how easily consumers are deceived by marketing researchers. In this case, the deception effects are negative, delayed, and short-term. Another consideration with regard to the potential effects of deception is that research deception can have direct or indirect consequences on a wide range of targets, including research participants who are deceived (or expect to be deceived), researchers, the marketing profession or the research enterprise in general, and society at large. Additionally, there are potential costs to all parties involved that stem from the decision not to employ deception for research purposes, including the greater difficulty in determining the validity of a theory or possible loss of knowledge that results (See Nonetheless, critics of this approach maintain that participants' rights to autonomy, dignity, and privacy are necessarily violated by deceptive research practices and that these rights should take precedence, regardless of any anticipated benefits The merits of the moral argument, along with some of its limitations, are considered in greater detail below in the context of a more detailed analysis of the ethics of deception from consequentialist and deontological perspectives. Methodological Drawbacks to the Use of Deception. The methodological argument against deceptive research essentially contends that deception increases the suspiciousness of future research subjects, thereby exhausting the pool of naïve participants (e.g., Ortmann & Hertwig, 1997). This view reflects the concern that as the incidence of deception continues to rise, participants' growing sophistication about deceptive practices may cause them to behave unnaturally in behavioral science investigations. By extension, if the prevalence of deception over the years has decreased naiveté among prospective participants, this would diminish the methodological value of using deception in the first place. Further, even honest investigators might not be trusted by participants who view apparent "openness" with suspicion 11 These methodological effects are likely to be exacerbated as researchers continue to tap the same population of potential research participants, such as university subject pools or frequently sampled consumer groups. Already there are some indications that more consumers are refusing to participate in research, thereby increasing costs and the likelihood of non-response bias. Estimates of refusal rates for commercial marketing research have increased 20% since 1990 (Bowers, 1997), with survey refusal rates put as high as 60% Disciplinary Drawbacks to the Use of Deception. The third front on which deception has been criticized focuses on broader disciplinary concerns; specifically, that deceptive techniques reduce the public's trust in social scientists and give the research professions a poor reputation. In this view, it is not only the case that research participants are likely to perceive researchers as less trustworthy following deception research, but that this lack of trust accrues to the profession and to the larger society as well. In light of research showing that consumers evaluate some deceptive practices (such as misrepresentation of interview length or study purpose) as inappropriate, it is feared that they not only will be less likely to participate in future research, but that their research experience will negatively influence their image of the study sponsor, at least in commercial market research contexts (Tessar, 1994). It is further argued that the very practice of deceiving participants and of justifying such procedures can weaken researchers' respect for their participants and undermine their 12 own integrity and commitment to the truth. At the same time, the public's confidence in the scientific enterprise and in the credibility of those who engage in it is likely to be weakened, thereby jeopardizing community support for the research enterprise and public trust in expert authorities. Given these various criticisms, it is apparent that evaluations of the effects of employing deception for research purposes can be directed at the ethical, methodological, or disciplinary level. With these considerations in mind, in the next section we provide an in-depth analysis of the ethics of deception from the perspective of some key theories of moral philosophy. The Ethics of Deception in Research Professional codes of ethics in the field of marketing and related disciplines typically place the onus of ethical decision making in the research context directly on the investigator(s) responsible for carrying out a study. Thus, whether a researcher is contemplating the use of active or passive deception, it is essential that he or she first establish that the deception is morally justifiable. In essence, deceit is the intentional effort to mislead people. It is a way of making people act against their will and the most common reason for distrust. According to Various theories of moral philosophy might be applied in an attempt to evaluate the ethics of deceptive research practices. The theories that form the basis of our subsequent discussion, consequentialism and deontology, are implicitly used in codes of conduct governing research and represent the approaches to ethical analysis that have received the greatest attention within the marketing discipline, having been introduced by Hunt and 13 Vitell (1986) and subsequently explored empirically in a program of research examining factors that affect ethical decision making (cf. Hunt and Vitell's (1986) "general theory of marketing ethics" is an attempt to explain the decision-making process for situations involving an ethical problem. In their view, nearly all normative ethical theories can be classified as either deontological or teleological in nature. Whereas deontological theories focus on the inherent rightness of a behavior, teleological theories emphasize the amount of goodness or badness inherent in the consequences of actions. Given this distinction, ethical judgments are considered by Hunt and Vitell (1986) to be a function of a person's deontological evaluation, which involves the application of norms to each behavioral alternative, and a person's teleological evaluation, involving the assessment of the overall goodness or badness likely to be produced by each alternative action. While there are theories of moral philosophy that are neither consequentialist nor deontological (e.g., theories of virtue), it is reasonable to claim that most theories fall within one of these two major categories. Also, they are more accurately seen as terms denoting types of theories, rather than each being a singular and distinct theory of moral philosophy. Consequentialism Consequentialist theories of moral philosophy take many forms. However, at their core is the premise that an action is morally right, relative to some other action (or not acting at all), if it produces the greatest good consequences and the least bad consequences. Hence, the moral evaluation of an act reflects an assessment of the balance of good consequences over bad and thus (in most formulations) the amount of value in the world as a result of the act Utilitarianism is the most dominant and the best known of the various consequentialist theories of moral philosophy. As generally conceived, utilitarianism is "a moral theory that regards welfare, or the good of individuals, as the ultimate value, and evaluates other things, such as acts, solely by their promotion of that value" (Lyons, 1992, p. 640). Accordingly, an act is morally right (and generally obligatory) that produces the greatest net welfare or utility for those affected. It is important to differentiate between act-utilitarianism and indirect forms of utilitarianism, particularly rule-utilitarianism (and, more broadly, act-consequentialism and rule-consequentialism). Act-utilitarianism applies the utility or welfare criterion to specific acts by a particular individual; rule-utilitarianism, by contrast, holds that the rightness of an act is determined by whether it is consistent with conduct permitted by social rules that maximize human welfare While dating back to the late seventeenth century, act-utilitarianism remains an important theory within contemporary moral philosophy. With its reliance on the overarching ideal of maximizing human welfare, act-utilitarianism offers a consistent approach for the moral evaluation of all human conduct. Nonetheless, it is rarely advanced today as a decision procedure for day-to-day moral thinking. Rule-utilitarianism is generally 15 preferred, particularly in light of some of the shortcomings of act-utilitarianism, such as the lack of information about probable consequences of our actions and the lack of time to collect this information Rule-utilitarianism's direct reference to moral rules is seen as more consistent with the logic of moral reasoning and the common understanding of morality as a social code, where individuals have convictions about moral obligations and minimum moral standards. Thus, it is seen as more intuitively plausible and less likely to be at odds with nonconsequentialist reasoning than act-utilitarianism. As Hooker Also, under act-utilitarianism certain acts are right even when they violate common 16 prohibitions (e.g., killing an innocent person, violating a promise) and with only a marginal gain in net good. These counter-intuitive determinations are avoided under rule-utilitarian analysis, which is generally more consistent with our beliefs about when one can or cannot engage in normally prohibited acts for the sake of the overall good. Under ruleutilitarianism, internalization of the prohibition would generally result in more overall good. Nonetheless, rule-utilitarianism would permit a normally prohibited act to prevent a disaster, in contrast with some forms of deontological reasoning. Critics of rule-utilitarianism have focused on its basis for rightness and whether it can correctly identify what makes right acts right. Some suggest that it is inconsistent to argue that rules should be evaluated by their consequences, but not acts, and others have maintained that rule-utilitarianism ultimately collapses into act-utilitarianism. Hooker (2000) has rejected these points by differentiating between a compliance formulation of rule-utilitarianism and an acceptance formulation (under which rules are internalized). Under the former, rule-utilitarianism would favor one simple rule that one must always do what will maximize the good-hence, collapsing into act-utilitarianism. However, the good may not be maximized under these conditions, for reasons previously discussed. According to Hooker, because of the broad costs and benefits of rule internalization, only a small set of rules would be internalized and thus provide the basis for moral concern and action. Deontology In contrast to consequentialist theories, deontological theories generally treat the morality of conduct as being independent of consequences. This is not to say that consequences are unimportant; rather, the nonconsequentialist position is that consequences are not the sole determinant of rightness. More specifically, deontology (which comes from the Greek word deontos and refers to "that which is binding") is a type of moral philosophy theory based in duty. Duty-based theories focus upon the obligations of moral agents and are therefore agent-relative, in contrast to most formulations of consequentialism which are generally agent-neutral. Hence, the rightness or wrongness of an act stems from a person's duties (e.g., to do no harm); that is, what that person is morally obligated to do or not do in a given situation. In many formulations of deontological theory, an act is right or wrong in and of itself, although this does not necessarily amount to moral absolutism, where an act is right or wrong whatever the consequences. (For example, killing innocent people is often advanced as an act that should be ruled absolutely immoral). However, some duty-based theories do allow for consequences to be a consideration in determining what duties a person has or the priority of different duties, particularly where duties conflict

Higher TIER bumble bees and solitary bees recommendations for a semi-field experimental design

The publication of the proposed EFSA risk assessment guidance document of plant protection products for pollinators highlighted that there are no study designs for non-Apis pollinators available. Since no official guidelines exist for semi-field testing at present, protocols were proposed by the ICPPR non-Apis working group and two years of ring-testing were conducted in 2016 and 2017 to develop a general test set-up. The ringtest design was based on the draft EFSA guidance document, OEPP/EPPO Guideline No. 170 and results of discussions regarding testing solitary bees and bumble bees during the meetings of the ICPPR non-Apis workgroup. Ring-tests were conducted with two different test organisms, one representative of a social bumble bee species (Bombus terrestris L; Hymenoptera, Apidae) and one representative of a solitary bee species (Osmia bicornis L; Hymenoptera, Megachilidae). The species are common species in Europe, commercially available and widely used for pollination services. Several laboratories participated in the higher-tier ring tests. 15 semi-field tests were conducted with bumble bees and 16 semi-field tests were done with solitary bees in 2016 and 2017. Two treatment groups were always included in the ringtests: an untreated control (water treated) and the treatment with dimethoate as a toxic reference item (optional other i.e. brood-affecting substances fenoxycarb or diflubenzuron). The toxic reference items were chosen based on their mode of action and long term experience in honey bee testing. A summary of the ringtest results will be given and the recommendations for the two semi-field test designs will be presented.The publication of the proposed EFSA risk assessment guidance document of plant protection products for pollinators highlighted that there are no study designs for non-Apis pollinators available. Since no official guidelines exist for semi-field testing at present, protocols were proposed by the ICPPR non-Apis working group and two years of ring-testing were conducted in 2016 and 2017 to develop a general test set-up. The ringtest design was based on the draft EFSA guidance document, OEPP/EPPO Guideline No. 170 and results of discussions regarding testing solitary bees and bumble bees during the meetings of the ICPPR non-Apis workgroup. Ring-tests were conducted with two different test organisms, one representative of a social bumble bee species (Bombus terrestris L; Hymenoptera, Apidae) and one representative of a solitary bee species (Osmia bicornis L; Hymenoptera, Megachilidae). The species are common species in Europe, commercially available and widely used for pollination services. Several laboratories participated in the higher-tier ring tests. 15 semi-field tests were conducted with bumble bees and 16 semi-field tests were done with solitary bees in 2016 and 2017. Two treatment groups were always included in the ringtests: an untreated control (water treated) and the treatment with dimethoate as a toxic reference item (optional other i.e. brood-affecting substances fenoxycarb or diflubenzuron). The toxic reference items were chosen based on their mode of action and long term experience in honey bee testing. A summary of the ringtest results will be given and the recommendations for the two semi-field test designs will be presented

Perception of Male Caller Identity in Koalas (Phascolarctos cinereus): Acoustic Analysis and Playback Experiments

The ability to signal individual identity using vocal signals and distinguish between conspecifics based on vocal cues is important in several mammal species. Furthermore, it can be important for receivers to differentiate between callers in reproductive contexts. In this study, we used acoustic analyses to determine whether male koala bellows are individually distinctive and to investigate the relative importance of different acoustic features for coding individuality. We then used a habituation-discrimination paradigm to investigate whether koalas discriminate between the bellow vocalisations of different male callers. Our results show that male koala bellows are highly individualized, and indicate that cues related to vocal tract filtering contribute the most to vocal identity. In addition, we found that male and female koalas habituated to the bellows of a specific male showed a significant dishabituation when they were presented with bellows from a novel male. The significant reduction in behavioural response to a final rehabituation playback shows this was not a chance rebound in response levels. Our findings indicate that male koala bellows are highly individually distinctive and that the identity of male callers is functionally relevant to male and female koalas during the breeding season. We go on to discuss the biological relevance of signalling identity in this species' sexual communication and the potential practical implications of our findings for acoustic monitoring of male population levels

Ethical issues in behavioral research : basic and applied perspectives, 2nd ed./ Kimmel

xx, 405 hal.; 23 cm