Beyond Outcomes: The Influence of Intentions and Deception (original) (raw)
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Previous research has discussed the effects of monetary incentives and prosociality on deceptive behavior. However, research has not comprehensively investigated the relationship between these two factors. In the current research, we introduce a repeated two-player sender–receiver binary choice task, where players in the role of senders or receivers receive asymmetric information regarding payoffs, offering the opportunity to explore the effects of economic incentives to lie according to the players’ prosociality. In Experiment 1, players are paired to play the game as a sender or receiver online. We find that economic incentives determine the likelihood of deception from senders and the likelihood that receivers will deviate from the received suggestions. Moreover, prosociality is related to players’ behavior: Prosocial senders send less deceptive messages and prosocial receivers choose options that benefit senders more. Furthermore, senders display consistent behavior when interac...
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We examine subjects" behavior in sender-receiver games where there are gains from trade and alignment of interests in one of the two states. We elicit subjects" beliefs, risk and other-regarding preferences. Our design also allows us to examine the behavior of subjects in both roles, to determine whether the behavior in one role is the best response to the subject"s own behavior in the other role. The results of the experiment indicate that 60 percent of senders adopt deceptive strategies by sending favorable message when the true state of the nature is unfavorable. Nevertheless, 67 percent of receivers invest conditional upon a favorable message. The investing behavior of receivers cannot be explained by risk preferences or as a best response to subject"s own behavior in the sender"s role. However, it can be rationalized by accounting for elicited beliefs and other-regarding preferences. Finally, the honest behavior of some senders can be explained by other-regarding preferences. Thus we find liars do believe, and individuals who care about the payoffs of others tend to be honest.
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We experimentally investigate the relationship between (un)kind actions and subsequent deception in a two-player, two-stage game. The first stage involves a dictator game. In the second-stage, the recipient in the dictator game has the opportunity to lie to her counterpart. We study how the fairness of dictator-game outcomes affects subsequent lying decisions where lying hurts one's counterpart. In doing so, we examine whether the moral cost of lying varies when retaliating against unkind actions is financially beneficial for the self (selfish lies), as opposed to being costly (spiteful lies). We find evidence that individuals engage in deception to reciprocate unkind behavior: The smaller the payoff received in the first stage, the higher the lying rate. Intention-based reciprocity largely drives behavior, as individuals use deception to punish unkind behavior and truth-telling to reward kind behavior. For selfish lies, individuals have a moral cost of lying. However, for spiteful lies, we find no evidence for such costs. Taken together, our data show a moral cost of lying that is not fixed but instead context-dependent.
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This paper introduces a new task to elicit individual aversion to deceiving, based on a modi…ed version of the Deception Game as presented in Gneezy (Am. Econ. Rev. 95 (1): 384-395: 2005). A multipleprice-list mechanism is used to determine the deception premium asked by an individual to switch from faithful to deceitful communication. The results show that, depending on payo¤s, 71% of the subjects will switch at most once. Among them, 40% appear to be either "ethical" or "spiteful". The other 60% respond to incentives in line with the cost of lying theory; they will forego faithful communication if the bene…t from deceiving the other is large enough. Regression analysis shows that this deception premium is independent of the risk aversion and social preferences of the subject; it would thus capture an inner preference for behaving well.
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This paper introduces a new task to elicit individual aversion to deceiving, based on a modi…ed version of the Deception Game as presented in Gneezy (Am. Econ. Rev. 95 (1): 384-395: 2005). A multipleprice-list mechanism is used to determine the deception premium asked by an individual to switch from faithful to deceitful communication. The results show that, depending on payo¤s, 71% of the subjects will switch at most once. Among them, 40% appear to be either "ethical" or "spiteful". The other 60% respond to incentives in line with the cost of lying theory; they will forego faithful communication if the bene…t from deceiving the other is large enough. Regression analysis shows that this deception premium is independent of the risk aversion and social preferences of the subject; it would thus capture an inner preference for behaving well.
Truth or consequences: An experiment
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This paper presents evidence that the willingness to punish an unfair action is sensitive to whether this action was preceded by a deceptive message. One player first sends a message indicating an intended play, which is either favorable or unfavorable to the other player in the game. After the message, the sender and the receiver play a simultaneous 2x2 game, in which the sender may or may not play according to his message. Outcome cells may, hence, be reached following true or false messages. In the third stage the receiver may (at a cost) punish or reward, depending on which cell of the simultaneous game has been reached. We test whether receivers' rates of monetary sacrifice depend on the process by which an outcome is reached. We study two decisionelicitation methods: the strategy and the direct response methods. For each method, deception more than doubles the punishment rate as a response to an action that is unfavorable to the receiver. We also find evidence that 17-25% of all participants choose to reward a favorable action choice made by the sender, even though doing so leaves one at a payoff disadvantage. Our results reflect on current economic models of utility and have implications for organizational decisionmaking behavior.
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Journal of Economic Psychology, 2014
Honesty toward strangers can be considered an important norm of any given society. However, despite burgeoning interest in honesty among experimenters, the heterogeneous nature of prior experimental designs obfuscates our understanding of this important topic. The present review of 63 economic and psychological experiments constitutes the first attempt to compare findings across a range of honesty experiments. Our findings across experimental designs suggest the robust presence of unconditional cheaters and noncheaters, with the honesty of the remaining individuals being particularly susceptible to monitoring and intrinsic lying costs.
The costs of deception: Evidence from psychology
Experimental Economics, 2002
Recently, it has been argued that the evidence in social science research suggests that deceiving participants in an experiment does not lead to a significant loss of experimental control. Based on this assessment, experimental economists were counseled to lift their de facto prohibition against deception to capture its potential benefits. To the extent that this recommendation is derived from empirical studies, we argue that it draws on a selective sample of the available evidence. Building on a systematic review of relevant research in psychology, we present two major results: First, the evidence suggests that the experience of having been deceived generates suspicion that in turn is likely to affect the judgment and decision making of a non-negligible number of participants. Second, we find little evidence for the reputational spillover effects that have been hypothesized by a number of authors in psychology and economics (e.g., Kelman, H.C., 1967. Psychological Bulletin. 67, 1-11; Davis, D.D. and Holt, C.A., 1993. Experimental Economics. Princeton University Press, Princeton). Based on a discussion of the methodological costs and benefits of deception, we conclude that experimental economists' prohibition of deception is a sensible convention that economists should not abandon.