IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jeborg/v93y2013icp392-399.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Deciding whether to deceive: Determinants of the choice between deceptive and honest communication

Author

Listed:
  • Sakamoto, Kayo
  • Laine, Tei
  • Farber, Ilya

Abstract

Even when considered purely as strategic choices, decisions about deceptive communication are unusually complex and difficult to predict or analyze. The costs and benefits of deceptive and honest communication options may lie in very different domains, making direct comparison cognitively challenging. In this study, we use everyday scenarios to assess people's sensitivity to various aspects of such choices, including the probability that a deception will be detected and the costs and benefits associated with successful or failed deception. Factor analysis yields three composite determinants, which we interpret as sensitivities to (1) justifiability of deception, (2) benefit of successful deception, and (3) personal utility of honesty. We show that the relative strengths of these determinants differ in loss- vs. gain-facing scenarios: decision makers facing a probabilistic or certain loss take account of all three factors, while those facing a gain do not appear to make significant use of information about the magnitude of the potential benefit from deception. We discuss several potential explanations for this asymmetry.

Suggested Citation

  • Sakamoto, Kayo & Laine, Tei & Farber, Ilya, 2013. "Deciding whether to deceive: Determinants of the choice between deceptive and honest communication," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 392-399.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:93:y:2013:i:c:p:392-399
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2013.05.003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268113001273
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jebo.2013.05.003?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. Ulrich Schmidt & Chris Starmer & Robert Sugden, 2008. "Third-generation prospect theory," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 36(3), pages 203-223, June.
    2. Tversky, Amos & Kahneman, Daniel, 1992. "Advances in Prospect Theory: Cumulative Representation of Uncertainty," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 5(4), pages 297-323, October.
    3. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    4. 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.
    5. Sanjiv Erat & Uri Gneezy, 2012. "White Lies," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(4), pages 723-733, April.
    6. Uri Gneezy, 2005. "Deception: The Role of Consequences," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 384-394, March.
    7. Sjaak Hurkens & Navin Kartik, 2009. "Would I lie to you? On social preferences and lying aversion," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 12(2), pages 180-192, June.
    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. Roman M. Sheremeta, 2016. "The pros and cons of workplace tournaments," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 302-302, October.
    2. Sheremeta, Roman M. & Shields, Timothy W., 2017. "Deception and reception: The behavior of information providers and users," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 445-456.
    3. Schneider, Tim & Bizer, Kilian, 2017. "Expert qualification in markets for expert services: A Sisyphean Task?," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 323, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    4. Steinel, Wolfgang & Valtcheva, Kalina & Gross, Jörg & Celse, Jérémy & Max, Sylvain & Shalvi, Shaul, 2022. "(Dis)honesty in the face of uncertain gains or losses," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    5. Arbel, Yuval & Bar-El, Ronen & Siniver, Erez & Tobol, Yossef, 2014. "Roll a die and tell a lie – What affects honesty?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 107(PA), pages 153-172.

    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. Galeotti, Fabio & Kline, Reuben & Orsini, Raimondello, 2017. "When foul play seems fair: Exploring the link between just deserts and honesty," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 451-467.
    2. 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.
    3. Reuben, Ernesto & Stephenson, Matt, 2013. "Nobody likes a rat: On the willingness to report lies and the consequences thereof," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 384-391.
    4. Glätzle-Rützler, Daniela & Lergetporer, Philipp, 2015. "Lying and age: An experimental study," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 12-25.
    5. Balasubramanian, Parasuram & Bennett, Victor M. & Pierce, Lamar, 2017. "The wages of dishonesty: The supply of cheating under high-powered incentives," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 428-444.
    6. Schmidt, Ulrich & Friedl, Andreas & Lima de Miranda, Katharina, 2015. "Social comparison and gender differences in risk taking," Kiel Working Papers 2011, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    7. Natalia Borzino & Enrique Fatas & Emmanuel Peterle, 2015. "In Gov we trust: Voluntary compliance in networked investment games," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Science (CBESS) 15-21, School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    8. Enrico G. De Giorgi & Thierry Post, 2011. "Loss Aversion with a State-Dependent Reference Point," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 57(6), pages 1094-1110, June.
    9. Oben K Bayrak & Bengt Kriström, 2016. "Is there a valuation gap? The case of interval valuations," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 36(1), pages 218-236.
    10. Ulrich Schmidt & Horst Zank, 2012. "A genuine foundation for prospect theory," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 45(2), pages 97-113, October.
    11. Serge Blondel & Louis Lévy-garboua, 2011. "Can non-expected utility theories explain the paradox of not voting?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 31(4), pages 3158-3168.
    12. Utikal, Verena & Fischbacher, Urs, 2013. "Disadvantageous lies in individual decisions," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 108-111.
    13. Dorian Jullien, 2018. "Under Risk, Over Time, Regarding Other People: Language and Rationality within Three Dimensions," Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, in: Including a Symposium on Latin American Monetary Thought: Two Centuries in Search of Originality, volume 36, pages 119-155, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    14. Christoph Vanberg, 2017. "Who never tells a lie?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 20(2), pages 448-459, June.
    15. 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.
    16. Gneezy, Uri & Rockenbach, Bettina & Serra-Garcia, Marta, 2013. "Measuring lying aversion," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 293-300.
    17. repec:cup:judgdm:v:16:y:2021:i:6:p:1324-1369 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Meub, Lukas & Proeger, Till & Schneider, Tim & Bizer, Kilian, 2015. "The victim matters: Experimental evidence on lying, moral costs and moral cleansing," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 233, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    19. Galanis, Spyros & Vlassopoulos, Michael, 2014. "Concern for relative standing and deception," Discussion Paper Series In Economics And Econometrics 1403, Economics Division, School of Social Sciences, University of Southampton.
    20. Grosch, Kerstin & Rau, Holger A., 2017. "Gender differences in honesty: The role of social value orientation," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 258-267.
    21. Simon Gächter & Eric J. Johnson & Andreas Herrmann, 2022. "Individual-level loss aversion in riskless and risky choices," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 92(3), pages 599-624, April.

    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:93:y:2013:i:c:p:392-399. 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.