Does telling white lies signal pro-social preferences?
The opportunity to tell a white lie (i.e., a lie that benefits another person) generates a moral conflict between two opposite moral dictates, one pushing towards telling the truth always and the other pushing towards helping others. Here we study how people resolve this moral conflict. What does te...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Cambridge University Press
2015-11-01
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| Series: | Judgment and Decision Making |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://journal.sjdm.org/15/15612/jdm15612.pdf |
| _version_ | 1797761174786277376 |
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| author | Laura Biziou-van-Pol Jana Haenen Arianna Novaro Andrés Occhipinti Valerio Capraro |
| author_facet | Laura Biziou-van-Pol Jana Haenen Arianna Novaro Andrés Occhipinti Valerio Capraro |
| author_sort | Laura Biziou-van-Pol |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | The opportunity to
tell a white lie (i.e., a lie that benefits another person) generates a moral
conflict between two opposite moral dictates, one pushing towards telling the
truth always and the other pushing towards helping others. Here we study how
people resolve this moral conflict. What does telling a white lie signal about
a person's pro-social tendencies? To answer this question, we conducted a
two-stage 2x2 experiment. In the first stage, we used a Deception Game to
measure aversion to telling a Pareto white lie (i.e., a lie that helps both the
liar and the listener), and aversion to telling an altruistic white lie (i.e.,
a lie that helps the listener at the expense of the liar). In the second stage
we measured altruistic tendencies using a Dictator Game and cooperative
tendencies using a Prisoner's dilemma. We found three major results: (i) both
altruism and cooperation are positively correlated with aversion to telling a
Pareto white lie; (ii) both altruism and cooperation are negatively correlated
with aversion to telling an altruistic white lie; (iii) men are more likely
than women to tell an altruistic white lie, but not to tell a Pareto white lie.
Our results shed light on the moral conflict between prosociality and
truth-telling. In particular, the first finding suggests that a significant
proportion of people have non-distributional notions of what the right thing to
do is, irrespective of the economic consequences, they tell the truth, they
cooperate, they share their money. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-12T19:09:08Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-6b4860a9b0704643b0409aa7b5d5cc29 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1930-2975 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-12T19:09:08Z |
| publishDate | 2015-11-01 |
| publisher | Cambridge University Press |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Judgment and Decision Making |
| spelling | doaj.art-6b4860a9b0704643b0409aa7b5d5cc292023-08-02T06:00:41ZengCambridge University PressJudgment and Decision Making1930-29752015-11-01106538548Does telling white lies signal pro-social preferences?Laura Biziou-van-PolJana HaenenArianna NovaroAndrés OcchipintiValerio CapraroThe opportunity to tell a white lie (i.e., a lie that benefits another person) generates a moral conflict between two opposite moral dictates, one pushing towards telling the truth always and the other pushing towards helping others. Here we study how people resolve this moral conflict. What does telling a white lie signal about a person's pro-social tendencies? To answer this question, we conducted a two-stage 2x2 experiment. In the first stage, we used a Deception Game to measure aversion to telling a Pareto white lie (i.e., a lie that helps both the liar and the listener), and aversion to telling an altruistic white lie (i.e., a lie that helps the listener at the expense of the liar). In the second stage we measured altruistic tendencies using a Dictator Game and cooperative tendencies using a Prisoner's dilemma. We found three major results: (i) both altruism and cooperation are positively correlated with aversion to telling a Pareto white lie; (ii) both altruism and cooperation are negatively correlated with aversion to telling an altruistic white lie; (iii) men are more likely than women to tell an altruistic white lie, but not to tell a Pareto white lie. Our results shed light on the moral conflict between prosociality and truth-telling. In particular, the first finding suggests that a significant proportion of people have non-distributional notions of what the right thing to do is, irrespective of the economic consequences, they tell the truth, they cooperate, they share their money.http://journal.sjdm.org/15/15612/jdm15612.pdflying-aversion white lies cooperation altruism prosociality moral dilemmas.NAKeywords |
| spellingShingle | Laura Biziou-van-Pol Jana Haenen Arianna Novaro Andrés Occhipinti Valerio Capraro Does telling white lies signal pro-social preferences? Judgment and Decision Making lying-aversion white lies cooperation altruism prosociality moral dilemmas.NAKeywords |
| title | Does telling white
lies signal pro-social preferences? |
| title_full | Does telling white
lies signal pro-social preferences? |
| title_fullStr | Does telling white
lies signal pro-social preferences? |
| title_full_unstemmed | Does telling white
lies signal pro-social preferences? |
| title_short | Does telling white
lies signal pro-social preferences? |
| title_sort | does telling white lies signal pro social preferences |
| topic | lying-aversion white lies cooperation altruism prosociality moral dilemmas.NAKeywords |
| url | http://journal.sjdm.org/15/15612/jdm15612.pdf |
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