“Debriefing” and susceptibility to subsequent experimental manipulations

Abstract

"Debriefing" refers to the postexperimental explanation of purposes and deceptions. How useful are data collected from persons who have previously been deceived and debriefed by an experimenter? In the test experiment, employing 110 undergraduates, the dependent variable was the number of subjects who signed the experimenter's petition, advocating doubling the tuition, following their damage, slight or large, of the experimenter's apparatus. The test experiment was preceded by deception and debriefing: subjects were assigned to no debriefing, partial debriefing, or complete debriefing. For half the subjects, the test experiment included an element from the debriefing experience; for the other half, the common element was omitted. It was concluded that a sufficiently powerful independent variable can offset the desensitizing effects of debriefing, unless complete prior debriefing is coupled with explicit similarity between the debriefing situation and the test experiment.