Abstract
We experimentally investigate the relationship between (un)kind actions and subsequent deception. In a two-player, two-stage game, the first-stage varies the kindness of an interaction between a pair of individuals. The second-stage gives one player the opportunity to lie to her counterpart. We study two types of deception: Selfish lies that benefit the self and are costly for the counterpart, and spiteful lies that are costly for both players. We find that, in the domain of selfish lies, kind actions are rewarded by honesty whereas there is no evidence of punishment of unkind actions. Further, we observe that individuals have a moral cost of lying regardless of the level of (un)kindness of the previous interaction: lying rates are lower than direct-punishment rates for every level of (un)kindness. With spiteful lies, our results point to negative reciprocity, and we find no difference between lying rates and direct-punishment rates. Taken together, our results suggest that motives for lying depend on the type of lie.
Highlights
Work environment substantially affects employee satisfaction and behavior
We investigate whether deception serves as a reciprocity device and the moral cost it entails
We further explore whether differences in deception rates in both circumstances are triggered by initial payoff allocations or unkind intentions
Summary
Work environment substantially affects employee satisfaction and behavior. Numerous examples demonstrate that low worker satisfaction decreases productivity. A fast-growing experimental literature has documented that deception entails positive moral costs (Bucciol and Piovesan 2011; Fischbacher and Föllmi-Heusi 2013; Gneezy 2005; Mazar et al 2008).2 This literature predicts that, because lying is morally costly, less reciprocal behavior could occur when reciprocating requires individuals to lie than when it does not, regardless of the nature of a previous encounter. The proportion of individuals who lie is always lower than the proportion of individuals who directly choose the selfish payoff allocation, and the conditional probability of lying decreases as a function of the counterpart’s kindness This finding is in line with the predictions of a positive moral cost of lying that increases with increasing kindness, refuting the hypothesis of Hurkens and Kartik (2009). Our results show that there is an interaction between reciprocity concerns, lying costs, and incentives from lying, and highlight the need to combine insights from both the reciprocity and the lying literature in order to fully understand the drivers of deception
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