Completely agree that if the participants know they are receiving a special treatment they are likely to show more response bias. By “well-conducted RCT” I was thinking of studies with an active control like Nakimuli-Mpungu et al. (2020) in which patients “were randomly assigned to deliver either [group support psychotherapy] or group HIV education”. If done well, the participants won’t know which treatment the scientists “want” to perform better and so response bias will be constant.
Thank you for the kind words, Nick!
Completely agree that if the participants know they are receiving a special treatment they are likely to show more response bias. By “well-conducted RCT” I was thinking of studies with an active control like Nakimuli-Mpungu et al. (2020) in which patients “were randomly assigned to deliver either [group support psychotherapy] or group HIV education”. If done well, the participants won’t know which treatment the scientists “want” to perform better and so response bias will be constant.
Gotcha makes sense. That’s very true love the active control!