IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jeborg/v189y2021icp132-149.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Observability and lying

Author

Listed:
  • Fries, Tilman
  • Gneezy, Uri
  • Kajackaite, Agne
  • Parra, Daniel

Abstract

Experimental participants in a cheating game draw a random number and then report any number they wish, receiving a monetary payoff based only on the report. We study how these reports depend on the level of observability of both the random draw and the report by the experimenter. Our results show that whereas increasing the observability of the random draw decreases cheating, increasing the anonymity of the reports does not affect average reports.

Suggested Citation

  • Fries, Tilman & Gneezy, Uri & Kajackaite, Agne & Parra, Daniel, 2021. "Observability and lying," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 189(C), pages 132-149.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:189:y:2021:i:c:p:132-149
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2021.06.038
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268121002778
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jebo.2021.06.038?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ben Greiner, 2015. "Subject pool recruitment procedures: organizing experiments with ORSEE," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 1(1), pages 114-125, July.
    2. 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.
    3. Miller, Luis & Ubeda, Paloma, 2012. "Are women more sensitive to the decision-making context?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 83(1), pages 98-104.
    4. Ellen Garbarino & Robert Slonim & Marie Claire Villeval, 2018. "A method to estimate mean lying rates and their full distribution," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 4(2), pages 136-150, December.
    5. Barmettler, Franziska & Fehr, Ernst & Zehnder, Christian, 2012. "Big experimenter is watching you! Anonymity and prosocial behavior in the laboratory," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 75(1), pages 17-34.
    6. Matthias Sutter, 2009. "Deception Through Telling the Truth?! Experimental Evidence From Individuals and Teams," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(534), pages 47-60, January.
    7. Serra-Garcia, Marta & van Damme, Eric & Potters, Jan, 2011. "Hiding an inconvenient truth: Lies and vagueness," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 244-261, September.
    8. Rode, Julian, 2010. "Truth and trust in communication: Experiments on the effect of a competitive context," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 325-338, January.
    9. Johannes Abeler & Daniele Nosenzo & Collin Raymond, 2019. "Preferences for Truth‐Telling," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 87(4), pages 1115-1153, July.
    10. Kiryl Khalmetski & Dirk Sliwka, 2019. "Disguising Lies—Image Concerns and Partial Lying in Cheating Games," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(4), pages 79-110, November.
    11. Urs Fischbacher & Franziska Föllmi-Heusi, 2013. "Lies In Disguise—An Experimental Study On Cheating," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 525-547, June.
    12. Blume, Andreas & DeJong, Douglas V. & Kim, Yong-Gwan & Sprinkle, Geoffrey B., 2001. "Evolution of Communication with Partial Common Interest," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 79-120, October.
    13. Fries, Tilman & Parra, Daniel, 2021. "Because I (don’t) deserve it: Entitlement and lying behavior," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 185(C), pages 495-512.
    14. James Andreoni & B. Douglas Bernheim, 2009. "Social Image and the 50-50 Norm: A Theoretical and Experimental Analysis of Audience Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(5), pages 1607-1636, September.
    15. Cappelen, Alexander W. & Sørensen, Erik Ø. & Tungodden, Bertil, 2013. "When do we lie?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 258-265.
    16. Kajackaite, Agne & Gneezy, Uri, 2017. "Incentives and cheating," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 433-444.
    17. Blume, Andreas & Lai, Ernest K. & Lim, Wooyoung, 2019. "Eliciting private information with noise: The case of randomized response," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 356-380.
    18. Uri Gneezy & Agne Kajackaite & Joel Sobel, 2018. "Lying Aversion and the Size of the Lie," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(2), pages 419-453, February.
    19. Rachel Croson & Uri Gneezy, 2009. "Gender Differences in Preferences," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 448-474, June.
    20. Joseph Tao-yi Wang & Michael Spezio & Colin F. Camerer, 2010. "Pinocchio's Pupil: Using Eyetracking and Pupil Dilation to Understand Truth Telling and Deception in Sender-Receiver Games," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(3), pages 984-1007, June.
    21. Dan Ariely & Anat Bracha & Stephan Meier, 2009. "Doing Good or Doing Well? Image Motivation and Monetary Incentives in Behaving Prosocially," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(1), pages 544-555, March.
    22. Uri Gneezy, 2005. "Deception: The Role of Consequences," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 384-394, March.
    23. Dreber, Anna & Johannesson, Magnus, 2008. "Gender differences in deception," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 99(1), pages 197-199, April.
    24. Khalmetski, Kiryl & Rockenbach, Bettina & Werner, Peter, 2017. "Evasive lying in strategic communication," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 59-72.
    25. Ellen Garbarino & Robert Slonim & Marie Claire Villeval, 2018. "A Method to Estimate Mean Lying Rates and Their Full Distribution," Post-Print halshs-01896598, HAL.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Huber, Christoph & Litsios, Christos & Nieper, Annika & Promann, Timo, 2023. "On social norms and observability in (dis)honest behavior," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 212(C), pages 1086-1099.
    2. Bašić, Zvonimir & Quercia, Simone, 2022. "The influence of self and social image concerns on lying," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 162-169.
    3. Keh-Kuan Sun & Stella Papadokonstantaki, 2023. "Lying Aversion and Vague Communication: An Experimental Study," Papers 2301.00372, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2023.
    4. Alice Guerra & Emanuela Randon & Antonello E. Scorcu, 2022. "Gender and deception: Evidence from survey data among adolescent gamblers," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 75(4), pages 618-645, November.
    5. Despoina Alempaki & Valeria Burdea & Daniel Read, 2023. "Deceptive Communication: Direct Lies vs. Ignorance, Partial-Truth and Silence," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 444, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    6. Zakharov, Alexei, 2023. "Lying with heterogeneous image concerns," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 228(C).

    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. Khalmetski, Kiryl & Rockenbach, Bettina & Werner, Peter, 2017. "Evasive lying in strategic communication," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 59-72.
    2. Marie Claire Villeval, 2019. "Comportements (non) éthiques et stratégies morales," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 70(6), pages 1021-1046.
    3. Alice Guerra & Emanuela Randon & Antonello E. Scorcu, 2022. "Gender and deception: Evidence from survey data among adolescent gamblers," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 75(4), pages 618-645, November.
    4. Lafky, Jonathan & Lai, Ernest K. & Lim, Wooyoung, 2022. "Preferences vs. strategic thinking: An investigation of the causes of overcommunication," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 92-116.
    5. Khalmetski, Kiryl, 2019. "Evasion of guilt in expert advice," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 296-310.
    6. Kerschbamer, Rudolf & Neururer, Daniel & Gruber, Alexander, 2019. "Do altruists lie less?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 560-579.
      • Rudolf Kerschbamer & Daniel Neururer & Alexander Gruber, 2017. "Do the altruists lie less?," Working Papers 2017-18, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck, revised 09 Nov 2017.
    7. Lohse, Tim & Qari, Salmai, 2021. "Gender differences in face-to-face deceptive behavior," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 187(C), pages 1-15.
    8. Chloe Tergiman & Marie Claire Villeval, 2023. "The Way People Lie in Markets: Detectable vs. Deniable Lies," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(6), pages 3340-3357, June.
    9. Despoina Alempaki & Gönül Doğan & Silvia Saccardo, 2019. "Deception and reciprocity," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 22(4), pages 980-1001, December.
    10. Valerio Capraro, 2018. "Gender differences in lying in sender-receiver games: A meta-analysis," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 13(4), pages 345-355, July.
    11. 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.
    12. Benistant, Julien & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2019. "Unethical behavior and group identity in contests," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 128-155.
    13. Lang, Matthias & Schudy, Simeon, 2023. "(Dis)honesty and the value of transparency for campaign promises," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    14. Chloe Tergiman & Marie Claire Villeval, 2019. "The Way People Lie in Markets," Working Papers halshs-02292040, HAL.
    15. Besancenot, Damien & Vranceanu, Radu, 2020. "Profession and deception: Experimental evidence on lying behavior among business and medical students," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 175-187.
    16. Despoina Alempaki & Valeria Burdea & Daniel Read, 2023. "Deceptive Communication: Direct Lies vs. Ignorance, Partial-Truth and Silence," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 444, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    17. Ann‐Kathrin Crede & Frauke von Bieberstein, 2020. "Reputation and lying aversion in the die roll paradigm: Reducing ambiguity fosters honest behavior," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 41(4), pages 651-657, June.
    18. Sandro Casal & Antonio Filippin, 2024. "The effect of observing multiple private information outcomes on the inclination to cheat," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 62(2), pages 543-562, April.
    19. repec:cup:judgdm:v:13:y:2018:i:4:p:345-355 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Grundmann, Susanna, 2020. "Do just deserts and competition shape patterns of cheating?," Passauer Diskussionspapiere, Volkswirtschaftliche Reihe V-79-20, University of Passau, Faculty of Business and Economics.
    21. Drouvelis, Michalis & Pearce, Graeme, 2023. "Is there a link between intelligence and lying?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 206(C), pages 182-203.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Lying; Cheating; Observability; Social image; Double blind; Laboratory experiment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making

    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:eee:jeborg:v:189:y:2021:i:c:p:132-149. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jebo .

    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.