The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Thing to Do When Sharing Information: Revealing, Concealing and Lying Depend on Social Motivation, Distribution and Importance of Information

Abstract

Research on information sharing in group decision-making has widely assumed a cooperative context and focused on the exchange of shared or unshared information in the hidden profile paradigm (Stasser & Titus, 1985, 1987), thereby neglecting the role of information importance. We argue that information sharing is a mixed-motive conflict setting that gives rise to motivated strategic behavior. We introduce a new research paradigm that combines aspects of the traditional information sample paradigm with aspects of a public good dilemma: The information pooling game. In three experiments, we show that information sharing is strategic behavior that depends on people's prosocial or proself motivation, and that people consider not only information sharedness, but also information importance when deciding whether to reveal, withhold, or falsify their private or public information. Prosocial individuals were consistently found to openly and honestly reveal their private and important information, while selfish individuals strategically concealed or even lied about their private and important information.