Motivated Interpretations of Deceptive Information.

Sigal Vainapel,Yaniv Shani,Shaul Shalvi

doi:10.3390/brainsci11030297

Sigal Vainapel, Yaniv Shani + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci11030297

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Journal: Brain sciences	Publication Date: Feb 26, 2021
Citations: 1	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Tel Aviv University, University of Amsterdam

Abstract

We examine whether people seek information that might help them make sense of others’ dishonest behavior. Participants were told that a hypothetical partner (either a friend or a stranger) had engaged in a task in which the partner could lie to boost their earnings at the expense of the participant’s earnings. Participants were less likely to search for information that can justify potential dishonest behavior conducted by a friend than by a stranger (Experiment 1). When participants knew for certain that their partners had lied to them, they were less likely to assume that that the lie was justified when told that the partner was a friend rather than a stranger (Experiment 2). The results imply that people are more likely to search for information that may reduce the severity of possible dishonest behavior when a stranger, rather than a friend, is responsible for the behavior.

Highlights

Amsterdam School of Economics, University of Amsterdam, 1012 WX Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Abstract: We examine whether people seek information that might help them make sense of others’
Given that the existence of a justification for a lie can mitigate the extent to which people perceive the lie as dishonest, we suggest that people who have been lied to might seek to regulate their negative feelings about the lie by searching for information that can justify the lie and explain the misconduct of the liar
We suggest that tolerance for such information—and, the tendency to search for information that might constitute justification for a lie—is affected by the relationship between the liar and the deceived

Summary

Introduction

Amsterdam School of Economics, University of Amsterdam, 1012 WX Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Abstract: We examine whether people seek information that might help them make sense of others’. Participants were less likely to search for information that can justify potential dishonest behavior conducted by a friend than by a stranger (Experiment 1). When participants knew for certain that their partners had lied to them, they were less likely to assume that that the lie was justified when told that the partner was a friend rather than a stranger (Experiment 2). Two experiments suggest that people do search for and generate information that might enable them to make sense of why others have lied to them. This tendency is moderated by the relationship between the deceiver and the deceived and their motivation to interpret the information retrieved as a justified lie. Self-serving justifications enable people to do wrong but feel moral; the availability of justification determines the magnitude of a person’s lies [7,8,9,10,11]

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