Lying in a foreign language?

Despoina Alempaki, Gönül Doğan and Yang Yang

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2021, vol. 185, issue C, 946-961

Abstract: We experimentally investigate whether using a foreign language affects social and personal norms on dishonesty, and whether language dependent norms explain lying behaviour. Participants can inflate their relative performance in a real effort task, and thereby increase their own payoff at a cost to another. As our main treatment manipulation, we vary the language of the experiment, that is conducted either in one's native or a foreign language. We find that dishonesty is generally perceived as more socially inappropriate in one's native language. However, we do not find a systematic foreign language effect on lying behaviour.

Keywords: Lying; Norm compliance; Personal norms; Social norms; Laboratory experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C90 C92 D03 D63 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:185:y:2021:i:c:p:946-961

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2020.10.027

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