But this by itself is merely evidence of social preferences, which as noted earlier, is a ell-established phenomenon. It has nothing to do inherently with lying aversion, since it applies just as well when the allocations are chosen directly in the dictator game rather than through communication in the deception game. This highlights Our analytical point: it is important to condition on preferences over allocations when interpreting lying behavior. Indeed, we will show that Enemy’s data is consistent with an even stronger version of the Hypothesis, biz. One cannot reject that 50 percent of people lie whenever they prefer the outcome from lying versus truth-telling and 50 percent of people never lie. That the Hypothesis is consistent with Engines data does not imply that it is an accurate description of people’s behavior. It is an important hypothesis to test because if it IS right, it means that people can be categorized as one of two types: either they are “ethical” and never lie, or they are “economic” and lie whenever they prefer the allocation obtained by lying.
If it is wrong, then a richer model of aversion to lying IS needed. 1 Accordingly, we ran experiments broadly similar to Enemy’s with the primary objective of testing the Hypothesis. Following Engines design, we ran reattempts of both the dictator game and deception game, but used a within- subject design so that players played both games (unlike Engine, where players played only one or the other); this permits us to make more precise inferences regarding people’s decisions to lie relative to their preferences over allocations.
We also used treatments that are more popularized than Engines in terms of how much the dictator or sender can gain by implementing one allocation over another. This, in principle, should make it more likely to reject the Hypothesis, if the Hypothesis is wrong, while it should have no effect if the Hypothesis is correct. In this sense, our design reduces the possibility of type II errors. Further details of our design are postponed to Section 4. Our data confirm Engines finding that there is a statistically significant level Of lying aversion.
However, with regards to how this aversion to lying varies with consequences, even our data cannot reject the notion that so long as a person prefers the outcome from lying, the decision to lie is independent of how much she gains and how much her partner loses, I. E. We are unable to reject the Hypothesis. Prediction with the assumption of rational expectations and selfishness This is a game of asymmetric information in which we have no knowledge of the beliefs of player 2; hence finding the game-theoretic equilibrium with selfish players is not trivial.
For the purpose of this discussion analyze the game as a decision problem for player 1 in the following sense: I assume that player 1 has rational expectations regarding player g’s decision. That is, player 1 guesses correctly the action of player 2 given the respective message. If that is the case, and player 1 is selfish, then she will always choose the outcome that maximizes her expected payoff. As it turned out, 78% of the participants n the role of 1 1 That is, “Message 1 Truth” and “Message Lie. ” player 2 followed the message sent by player 1 and chose the option in which player 1 told them they would earn more money.
That is, player 2 chose the option “recommended” by player Xi’s message. Moreover, 50 participants in the role of player 1 were asked to guess player g’s choice. Of these, 41 (82%) said that they expected player 2 to follow the message sent by them. To further test this assumption, the treatment was repeated with another group of 50 participants who played the role of player 1 . After making their hoicks, they were told that we had already conducted the experiment with player 2 (the original instructions were adapted such that this would not contradict what they had been told previously).
They were told that the player 2 they were matched with has chosen to follow the message they had sent. They were then asked whether they wished to reconsider their previous choice. Three (6%) chose to change their message: One moved from telling the truth to lying, and two moved the other way. To conclude, within the context of the experiment, if player 1 is simply interested in maximizing her own payoffs, and she has rational expectations bout the reaction of player 2 to the message she sends, she should always lie. Furthermore, player 1 understands this.
I find this property compelling because it helps separate strategic motives from fairness motives. Because player 1 expects the lie to ‘Work,” she is concerned only with the fairness of lying. Psychologist Robert Feldman cites self-esteem as one of the biggest culprits in our lying ways: “We find that as soon as people feel that their self-esteem is threatened, they immediately begin to lie at higher levels. ” Feldman believes many lies are simply for the purpose of maintaining social intact by avoiding insults or discord.
Small lies that avoid conflict are probably the most common sort of lie… And avoiding conflict is a top motivator for deception. For example: someone lying about traffic holding them up, rather than sleeping in… Or a “no, you look great in those pants” both sorts of lies achieve the effect of avoiding social conflict. They are “make life easier” kinds of lies. Back to the self-esteem angle: The farther one’s true self is from their ideal self, the more likely they are to lie to boost themselves up, in others’ eyes or their eyes or perhaps how they perceive others to perceive them.
That is a hard train of thought to follow, but lying is a complex phenomenon. The present experiment examined participants’ insight into their own behavior and speech content while lying. It was hypothesized that participants would believe that while lying they show more behavior stereotypical of lying than they in fact do (Hypothesis 1), whereas they would believe that their own speech content while lying contains fewer stereotypical features than in fact is true (Hypothesis 2). A stereotypical response was defined as a response people generally believe liars usually show.
A total of 6 nursing students were interviewed twice about a film they had just seen. During one interview they were asked to tell the truth whereas they had to lie in the other interview. All interviews were videotaped, transcribed and then scored by independent coders. The coders’ analyses reveal participants’ actual behavior and speech content. Participants themselves were asked to indicate in a questionnaire how they believed they behaved and what they believed they said in both interviews.
To test the hypotheses, comparisons were made be;en participants’ actual responses and their beliefs about their own responses. The results support both hypotheses and implications of these outcomes for the detection of deception are discussed. Hypothesis: Most of us are not Hitlerism in our lies, but nearly all of us shade the truth just enough to make ourselves or others feel better. By how much do we lie? About 10 percent, says behavioral economist Dan Rarely in his 2012 book The Honest Truth about Dishonesty (Harper).
In an experiment in which subjects solve as many number matrices as possible in a limited time and get paid for each correct answer, those who turned in their results to the experimenter in the room averaged four out Of 20. In a second condition in which subjects count up their correct answers, shred their answer sheet and tell the experimenter in another room how many they got right, they averaged six out of 20-?a 10 percent increase. And the effect held even when the amount paid per correct answer was increased from 25 to 50 cents to $1 , $2 and even $5.
Tellingly, at SSL O per correct answer the amount of lying went slightly down. Lying Rarely says, is not the result of a cost-benefit analysis. Instead it is a form of self-deception in which small lies allow us to dial up our self-image and still retain the perception of being an honest person. Big lies do not. Psychologists Shall Shall, ROR Elder and Yell Berry-Meyer tested the hypothesis that people are more likely to lie when they can justify the deception to themselves in a 201 3 paper entitled “Honesty Requires Time (and Lack of Justifications),” published in Psychological Science.
Subjects rolled a die three times in a setup that blocked the experimenter’s view of the outcome and were instructed to report the number that came up in the first roll. (The higher the number, the more money they were paid. ) Seeing the outcomes of the second and third rolls gave the participants an opportunity o justify reporting the highest number of the three; because that number had actually come up, it was a justified lie. Some subjects had to report their answer within 20 seconds, whereas others had an unlimited amount of time. Although both groups lied, those who were given less time were more likely to do so.
In a second experiment subjects rolled the die once and reported the outcome. Those who were pressed for time lied; those who had time to think told the truth. The TV’0 experiments suggest that people are more likely to lie when time is short, but when time is not a factor they lie only when they have justification to do so. People lie all the time. According to the psychologist Robert Feldman, who has spent more than four decades studying the phenomenon, we lie, on average, three times during a routine ten-minute conversation with a stranger or casual acquaintance.
