Measuring lying aversion

Abstract

We introduce a new method for measuring the decision to lie in experiments. In the game, the decision to lie increases own payment independent of the counterpart's decision, but potentially at a cost for the counterpart. We identify at the individual level the decision to lie, and measure how individuals react to different incentives to lie. Furthermore we investigate how lying behavior changes over time. Our method allows us to classify people into types, including those who never lie, those who always lie, and those who react to incentives to lie. We suggest this method as a useful instrument for examining factors that influence the decision to lie.

The Good, the Bad, and the Angry: An Experimental Study on the Heterogeneity of People's (Dis)honest Behavior

“…As side results, we show that three important results of previous literature extend from the static setting where they were first found, to our dynamic setting: the result by Gneezy et al (2013) that unlucky people lie more than lucky people; the result by Gneezy et al (forthcoming) that most liars lie maximally; and the result that men lie more than women in self-serving situations. Especially the latter result is somewhat interesting and non-trivial.…”

Who Lies? A Meta-Analysis of the Effect of Sex, Age, and Education on Honesty

“…I analyze N = 1,627 distinct observations, in 9 experimental conditions: eight by my research group, and one by Gneezy, Rockenbach, and Serra-Garcia (2013).…”

Gender differences in honesty: The role of social value orientation

“…According to Rosenbaum et al (2014), "[..] it seems that the experimental agenda regarding honesty could greatly benefit from having a more precise understanding of underlying individual-level motives and how they aggregate to prosocial norms, which would provide a better understanding of how dishonest behavior may be impeded " (p.194). Many experiments on dishonest behavior analyze settings where cheating has an externality on another person (e.g., Sutter 2009;Gneezy et al 2013;Cappelen et al 2013). Of course dishonest behavior can incorporate a social component when the act of lying benefits somebody else.…”

“…In our simple setup, dishonest behavior has no externality on colleagues, but yields an individual benefit. Thus, we capture motives such as social norms in form of honesty to comply to a dictated rule (Gneezy et al 2013). Importantly, we rule out that honest behavior is motivated by concerns of other-regarding behavior.…”