Promises and lies: Can observers detect deception in written messages
Chen, J; Houser, D
Date: 8 July 2016
Journal
Experimental Economics
Publisher
Springer Verlag (Germany)
Publisher DOI
Abstract
Abstract: We design a laboratory experiment to examine predictions of trustworthiness
in a novel three-person trust game. We investigate whether and why observers of the
game can predict the trustworthiness of hand-written communications. Observers report
their perception of the trustworthiness of messages, and make predictions about ...
Abstract: We design a laboratory experiment to examine predictions of trustworthiness
in a novel three-person trust game. We investigate whether and why observers of the
game can predict the trustworthiness of hand-written communications. Observers report
their perception of the trustworthiness of messages, and make predictions about the
senders’ behavior. Using observers’ decisions, we are able to classify messages as
“promises” or “empty talk.” Drawing from substantial previous research, we hypothesize
that certain factors influence whether a sender is likely to honor a message and/or
whether an observer perceives the message as likely to behonored: the mention of money;
the use of encompassing words; and message length. We find that observers have more
trust in longer messages and “promises”; promises that mention money are significantly
more likely to be broken; and observers trust equally in promises that do and do not
mention money. Overall, observers perform slightly better than chance at predicting
whether a message will be honored. We attribute this result to observers’ ability to
distinguish promises from empty talk, and to trust promises more than empty talk.
However, within each of these two categories, observers are unable to discern between
messages that senders will honor from those that they will not.
Economics
Faculty of Environment, Science and Economy
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