[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/uea/wcbess/19-03.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Why do we lie? Distinguishing between competing lying theories?

Author

Listed:
  • Paul Clist

    (University of East Anglia)

  • Ying-yi Hong

    (Chinese University of Hong Kong)

Abstract
Lying is an important human behaviour that has received unprecedented empirical attention in recent years due to a new experimental paradigm in which subjects are incentivised to misreport a die roll for financial gain. Amongst theoretical attempts to explain results, Justified Dishonesty (JD) is a theory with impressive support and a plausible psychological foundation. JD predicts subjects will swap a paid and unpaid roll of a die whenever financially beneficial, as this feels less like lying. However, JD's predictions are virtually identical to a competing economic model. In Dufwenberg & Dufwenberg's (DD) subjects have perceived cheating aversion, incurring a cost of lying that is in proportion to the amount they are perceived to cheat. Current evidence is unable to distinguish between these two distinct mechanisms. Here we show that JD often makes accurate predictions, but is a poor expla- nation. We perform a placebo test, finding that JD is more accurate when it should be irrelevant. Furthermore, we elicit the second (unpaid) roll, strongly rejecting a direct corollary of JD. Our results demonstrate that the role of justifications and desired counterfactuals have been overstated. The simple idea that subjects dislike others perceiving them as liars in proportion to the size of the lie is sufficient to explain patterns of lying behaviour.

Suggested Citation

  • Paul Clist & Ying-yi Hong, 2019. "Why do we lie? Distinguishing between competing lying theories?," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Science (CBESS) 19-03, School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    • Handle: RePEc:uea:wcbess:19-03
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ueaeco.github.io/working-papers/papers/cbess/UEA-CBESS-19-03.pdf
    File Function: main text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Simon Gächter & Jonathan F. Schulz, 2016. "Intrinsic honesty and the prevalence of rule violations across societies," Nature, Nature, vol. 531(7595), pages 496-499, March.
    2. Rosenbaum, Stephen Mark & Billinger, Stephan & Stieglitz, Nils, 2014. "Let’s be honest: A review of experimental evidence of honesty and truth-telling," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 181-196.
    3. Catrine Jacobsen & Toke Reinholt Fosgaard & David Pascual†Ezama, 2018. "Why Do We Lie? A Practical Guide To The Dishonesty Literature," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(2), pages 357-387, April.
    4. Shalvi, Shaul & Dana, Jason & Handgraaf, Michel J.J. & De Dreu, Carsten K.W., 2011. "Justified ethicality: Observing desired counterfactuals modifies ethical perceptions and behavior," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 115(2), pages 181-190, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Garbarino, Ellen & Slonim, Robert & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2019. "Loss aversion and lying behavior," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 158(C), pages 379-393.
    2. Aksoy, Billur & Palma, Marco A., 2019. "The effects of scarcity on cheating and in-group favoritism," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 100-117.
    3. Ellen Garbarino & Robert Slonim & Marie Claire Villeval, 2016. "Loss Aversion and lying behavior: Theory, estimation and empirical evidence," Working Papers halshs-01404333, HAL.
    4. Martina Manfre' & Viola Angelini, 2018. "Does The Financial Situation affect Cheating Behavior? An Investigation through Financial Literacy," Working Papers 06/2018, University of Verona, Department of Economics.
    5. Eli Spiegelman, 2021. "Embracing The Dark Side? Testing The Socialization Of A Maximizing Mindset," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 59(2), pages 740-761, April.
    6. Ellen Garbarino & Robert Slonim & Marie Claire Villeval, 2019. "Loss aversion and lying behavior," Post-Print halshs-01981542, HAL.
    7. Billur Aksoy & Marco A. Palma, "undated". "The Effects of Scarcity on Cheating and In-Group Favoritism," Working Papers 20180918-001, Texas A&M University, Department of Economics.
    8. Maggioni, Mario A. & Rossignoli, Domenico, 2020. "Clever little lies: Math performance and cheating in primary schools in Congo," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 380-400.
    9. Heinicke, Franziska & Rosenkranz, Stephanie & Weitzel, Utz, 2019. "The effect of pledges on the distribution of lying behavior: An online experiment," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 136-151.
    10. Marie Claire Villeval, 2019. "Comportements (non) éthiques et stratégies morales," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 70(6), pages 1021-1046.
    11. Dufwenberg, Martin & Dufwenberg, Martin A., 2018. "Lies in disguise – A theoretical analysis of cheating," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 248-264.
    12. Fabio Galeotti & Valeria Maggian & Marie Claire Villeval, 2021. "Fraud Deterrence Institutions Reduce Intrinsic Honesty," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(638), pages 2508-2528.
    13. Alm, James & Bruner, David M. & McKee, Michael, 2016. "Honesty or dishonesty of taxpayer communications in an enforcement regime," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 85-96.
    14. Pfister, Roland & Wirth, Robert & Weller, Lisa & Foerster, Anna & Schwarz, Katharina, 2018. "Taking shortcuts: Cognitive conflict during motivated rule-breaking," MPRA Paper 95773, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Cristina Bicchieri & Eugen Dimant, 2018. "It's Not A Lie If You Believe It. Lying and Belief Distortion Under Norm-Uncertainty," PPE Working Papers 0012, Philosophy, Politics and Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
    16. Clot, Sophie & Grolleau, Gilles & Ibanez, Lisette, 2022. "A reference point bias in judging cheaters," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    17. Irlenbusch, Bernd & Mussweiler, Thomas & Saxler, David J. & Shalvi, Shaul & Weiss, Alexa, 2020. "Similarity increases collaborative cheating," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 148-173.
    18. Dandan Li & Ofir Turel & Shuyue Zhang & Qinghua He, 2022. "Self-Serving Dishonesty Partially Substitutes Fairness in Motivating Cooperation When People Are Treated Fairly," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(10), pages 1-14, May.
    19. Shuguang Jiang & Marie Claire Villeval, 2022. "Dishonesty in Developing Countries -What Can We Learn From Experiments?," Working Papers hal-03899654, HAL.
    20. Siniver, Erez & Yaniv, Gideon, 2018. "Losing a real-life lottery and dishonest behavior," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 26-30.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Dishonesty; Dice; Justification; Counterfactual; Perceived Lying Aversion;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:uea:wcbess:19-03. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Cara Liggins (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/esueauk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.