Résumé L’article évoque les bases de la méthode expérimentale en général et son adaptation à l’étude des phénomènes économiques tout en rendant compte des réflexions philosophiques récentes sur la nature des expériences en laboratoire. Il recense par ailleurs les principales procédures expérimentales qui caractérisent la bonne pratique des économistes – dont certaines témoignent d’une grande ingéniosité – en pointant en parallèle ce qui la sépare de celle plus ancienne des psychologues. La question des incitations financières y fait l’objet d’une attention (...) toute particulière. L’article souligne les immenses progrès réalisés en quelques décennies comme le caractère très professionnel de la démarche expérimentale, sans pour autant occulter les désaccords qui persistent entre certains expérimentalistes et l’existence de quelques questions « ouvertes » d’importance. A cet égard, l’article tente de faire le point sur l’un des questionnements méthodologiques qui, bien que central dans un argumentaire de défense contre la critique courante du caractère « artificiel » des expériences, n’est vraiment abordé de manière sérieuse que depuis peu : le problème de la « validité externe » des résultats expérimentaux, i.e. leur capacité à être généralisés en dehors du laboratoire. (shrink)

The following is a set of reading notes on, and questions for, the Neuroeconomics enterprise. My reading of neuroscience evidence seems to be at odds with basic conceptions routinely assumed in the Neuroeconomics literature. I also summarize methodological concerns regarding design, implementation, and statistical evaluation of Neuroeconomics experiments.

According to what I call the ‘argument from public bads’, if a researcher deceived subjects in the past, there is a chance that subjects will discount the information that a subsequent researcher provides, thus compromising the validity of the subsequent researcher’s experiment. While this argument is taken to justify an existing informal ban on explicit deception in experimental economics, it can also apply to implicit deception, yet implicit deception is not banned and is sometimes used in experimental economics. Thus, experimental (...) economists are being inconsistent when they appeal to the argument from public bads to justify banning explicit deception but not implicit deception. (shrink)

In recent years, several authors have debated about the justifiability of so-called scientific imperialism. To date, however, widespread disagreements remain regarding both the identification and the normative evaluation of scientific imperialism. In this paper, I aim to remedy this situation by making some conceptual distinctions concerning scientific imperialism and by providing a detailed assessment of the most prominent objections to it. I shall argue that these objections provide a valuable basis for opposing some instances of scientific imperialism, but do not (...) yield cogent reasons to think that scientific imperialism in general is objectionable or unjustified. I then highlight three wide-ranging implications of this result for the ongoing philosophical debate about the justifiability of scientific imperialism. (shrink)

People are common instruments in the social sciences. They may act as experimenter, receiving and instructing the participants; they may be a stooge, a confederate of the experimenter who is part of the experimental manipulation; they may function as raters of their own personality or that of others; or they may conduct interviews and do observations. In most social scientific research, people are necessary to elicit, record, or measure the phenomena under study. They are an essential instrument in most social (...) science. (shrink)

Beneficence and integrity comprise two of the five principles of the American Psychological Association (American Psychological Association [APA], 2017) code of ethics. The connection between ethic...

This article analyzes recent cases of company-sponsored online experiments with unsuspecting users and discusses the ethical aspects of such experimentation. These cases illustrate a new type of online research where companies modify their algorithms to intentionally misinform or mislead users. Unlike typical forms of A/B testing, where two versions of the same website are presented to different users to evaluate interface changes, algorithm modification is a deeper form of testing where changes in program code induce user deception. Thus, we propose (...) to call this new approach C/D experimentation to distinguish it from the surface-level website evaluation associated with A/B testing. Three aspects raise ethical concerns regarding C/D experimentation: the absence of user consent to participate in research, the presence of intentional deception, and the complete lack of protection for human subjects who partake in privately funded behavioral research. Three recommendations are proposed to address these issues: to develop an ethical code of conduct for subject protection shared by online companies, to include special provisions for C/D experiments in social networking platforms, and to create an independent user advocacy board to protect the rights of users who partake in online research conducted in the private sector. (shrink)

BackgroundImplementation of recommendations from clinical practice guidelines is essential for evidence based clinical practice. However, the most effective methods of implementation are unclear. We conducted a national, cluster-randomised, blinded implementation trial to determine if midwife or doctor local implementation leaders are more effective in implementing a guideline for use of oral dextrose gel to treat hypoglycaemic babies on postnatal wards. To prevent any conscious or unconscious performance bias both the doctor and midwife local implementation leaders were kept unaware of the (...) trial. This paper reports the ethical dilemmas and practical challenges of ensuring clinicians remained unaware of their involvement in an implementation trial.MethodsWe sought approval from the National Health and Disability Ethics committee to keep clinicians unaware of the trial by waiving the standard requirement for locality approval usually required for each district health board. The ethics committee did not approve a waiver of consent but advised that we approach the chief executive of each district health board to ask for provisional locality approval. Ultimately it was necessary to seek ethics approval for three separate study designs to keep clinicians unaware of the trial.ResultsThe median time for chief executive approval was 16 days and for locality approval was 57 days. We completed 21 different locality approval forms for 27 hospitals.ConclusionsKeeping clinicians unaware of their involvement in a national implementation cluster-randomised trial is feasible. However, despite a national ethics committee, significant logistical challenges were time consuming and delayed trial completion. Co-ordination of the locality approval process would help facilitate multi-centre trials. (shrink)

Some psychologists working in the psychology and law field feel that the profession does not provide them with adequate ethical guidance even though the field is arguably one of the oldest and best established applied fields of psychology. The uncertainty psychologists experience most likely stems from working with colleagues whose professional ethics differs from their own while providing services to demanding people and the many moral questions associated with the administration of law. I believe psychology’s ethics does, however, provide adequate (...) moral guidance. It has a sound historical basis, has face validity and emphasizes those social moral principles that allow psychologists to best serve individuals and society. Psychologists may nevertheless be confronted with conflicting demands because there are other norm systems that also regulate their behavior as researchers and practitioners, and they, like all people, are influenced by their conscience. Ultimately, psychologists working in the psycholegal field will be best served if they have good knowledge of, and have internalized, the ethical principles of psychology. (shrink)