The ethical dilemma of coached malingering research.

Ethical dilemmas surrounding research in which investigators evaluate the efficacy of various «coaching» strategies designed to «outsmart» validity scales are discussed. On the one hand, it is important for psychologists who interpret these scales to know the extent to which they are susceptible to coached malingering. On the other hand, information contained in such articles (i.e., descriptions of coaching strategies and evaluations of their efficacy) may be misused. This issue is discussed in the context of competing demands between (a) the requirement of the American Psychological Association's Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct that psychologists maintain the integrity and security of tests and (b) the need to provide detailed descriptions of research procedures in scientific articles