The influence of self and social image concerns on lying

Arbeitspapier

We investigate the influence of self and social image concerns as potential sources of lying costs. In a standard die-rolling experiment, we exogenously manipulate self-awareness and observability, which mediate the focus of a person on their private and public selves, respectively. First, we show that an increase in self-awareness has no effect on reporting private information. This suggests that self-image concerns may be less important than previously hypothesized in the literature on lying costs. Second, we show that increasing subjects' observability, while still maintaining private information, significantly decreases the subjects' reports. We finally show in a survey experiment that respondents believe that the likelihood of a lie increases with the reported outcome and attribute negative traits to people who make high reports. This further supports reputational concerns as the explanation behind the results of our social image treatment.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Discussion Papers of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods ; No. 2020/18

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Design of Experiments: Laboratory, Individual ; Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement ; Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design ; Micro-Based Behavioral Economics: Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making‡
• Subject: honesty ; truth-telling ; lying ; private information ; self-image concerns ; social imageconcerns ; reputation

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Bašic, Zvonimir ; Quercia, Simone
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods
• (where): Bonn
• (when): 2020

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/230973
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET