Abstract
Trustworthiness is a foundation of well-functioning relationships and societies, and thus often perceived as a socially normative behaviour. Correspondingly, a broad array of research found that people tend to act in a trustworthy way and signal their trustworthiness to others, and that trustworthiness is rewarded. Herein, we explore whether this motivation to behave trustworthily can have socially undesirable effects in terms of leading to dishonesty targeted at fulfilling the trustor's expectations (i.e. trustworthy dishonesty). Furthermore, we examine how the basic trait of Honesty-Humility, which has consistently been found to be linked to both higher honesty and trustworthiness, relates to trustworthy dishonesty, where honesty and trustworthiness are at odds. Specifically, we conducted three pre-registered studies (N = 7080), introducing a novel behavioural game, the lying-trust game, where participants had a chance to lie to act trustworthily. In two studies, we found that, when offered ‘full trust’, participants high in Honesty-Humility (i.e. the top 10%) engaged in trustworthy dishonesty, i.e. lied in order to avoid maximizing their own incentive at the cost of minimizing the incentive of their trustor. This pattern was not present when the trustor offered minimal trust only, as well as among participants low in Honesty-Humility (i.e. the bottom 10%).
Highlights
Interpersonal trust is fundamental for the effective functioning of social interactions as well as of society as a whole
This opposition between the social desirability of trustworthiness on one hand and its potentially antisocial consequences on the other might result in a moral conflict in situations in which behaving trustworthily requires engaging in unethical actions, such as dishonesty. This might be especially true for people who are generally predisposed to behave in a prosocial manner. In line with this possibility, in the following, we explore whether people high in Honesty-Humility are willing to lie in order to act in a trustworthy way
We found that participants in the ‘no trust’ condition reported significantly higher outcomes than participants in the ‘full trust’ condition (b = 0.49, s.e. = 0.09; z = 5.74; p < 0.001; odds ratio (OR) = 1.64; 95% confidence interval (CI) = (1.38; 1.94); figure 1)
Summary
Interpersonal trust is fundamental for the effective functioning of social interactions as well as of society as a whole. [12,13,14]) This opposition between the social desirability of trustworthiness on one hand and its potentially antisocial consequences on the other might result in a moral conflict in situations in which behaving trustworthily requires engaging in unethical actions, such as dishonesty. This might be especially true for people who are generally predisposed to behave in a prosocial (i.e. both honest and trustworthy) manner. Trustworthy dishonesty occurs in any situation in which an individual acts in a dishonest way as a mean to fulfil another individual’s expectations regarding reciprocating their trust (via acting trustworthily)
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