In psychology generally, naive subject is a subject who is unfamiliar with an experiment; in social psychology, a subject who has been misled as to the real purpose of the experiment. For example, in studies of conformity it would be self-defeating to tell a subject that the point of the experiment was to see how far he would conform to group pressure, so he is given a cover story instead and debriefed about the real nature of the study when it is over.
Definition