Hebrew U. study reveals people tell lies to avoid appearing dishonest
“Many people care about their reputation and how they will be perceived by others. Sometimes our desire to appear honest outweighs actually being honest, even if it costs us,” noted Choshen-Hillel.
By JERUSALEM POST STAFF“Lying to appear honest,” Choshen-Hillel et al., Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, Jan. 30, 2020.(photo credit: ZIV SHIMSHON)
A recent study released by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, led by Dr. Shoham Choshen-Hillel at the School of Business Administration and the Federmann Center for the Study of Rationality, in addition contributions by Alex Shaw at the University of Chicago and Eugene Caruso at UCLA, found that Lawyers and Employers often tell lies to avoid appearing dishonest.A variety of experiments were conducted to achieve the findings. In one experiment, the three researchers asked 115 Israeli lawyers to imagine a scenario in which they gave a client a work estimate of 60 to 90 billable hours Half of the participants were told that they actually worked only 60 hours, and the other half were told that they worked 90 hours. The client were unable to verify the number of hours works. In this scenario, 17 percent of the 60-hour group deliberately falsified and inflated their hours.In the 90-hour group, 18 percent of the participants falsely underreported their hours. Lawyers in this group who falsely reported their hours mentioned that they worried that clients would be suspicious of the high amount of hours, and that they didn't really work that amount of hours.“Many people care about their reputation and how they will be perceived by others. Sometimes our desire to appear honest outweighs actually being honest, even if it costs us,” noted Choshen-Hillel.A second experiment provided a series of interactive games to participants. In one of the experiments, 201 adults from the US were asked to imagine a scenario in which they worked for a large company with a maximum monthly mileage compensation of 400 miles. Within the experiment, half of the participants were told they had driven 300 miles that month, while the other half were told they had driven 400 miles. It was found the group in the 400-mile group more likely to underreport their mileage used.The final experiment included 149 Israeli college students, who were told to flip coin and report the side it landed on. Every time it landed on "heads", the student would get 15 cents. Unknowingly for the students, the game was actually rigged in favor of landing on heads. The coin would land multiple times in a row on "heads" accordingly. Similarly, the results showed that 24 percent of the students when reporting their results lied about the amount of "heads" they received, deliberately lowering the number of wins to avoid looking like cheaters“Our findings suggest that when people obtain extremely favorable outcomes, they anticipate other people’s suspicious reactions and prefer to lie and appear honest rather than tell the truth and appear selfish or liars. Most people will recognize a time in their lives when they were motivated to tell a lie to appear honest,” Choshen-Hillel concluded.The results were published in the American Psychological Association’s Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.
