A must lie situation – avoiding giving negative feedback

Uri Gneezy, Christina Gravert, Silvia Saccardo and Franziska Tausch ()

Games and Economic Behavior, 2017, vol. 102, issue C, 445-454

Abstract: We examine under what conditions people provide accurate feedback to others. We use feedback regarding attractiveness, a trait people care about, and for which objective information is hard to obtain. Our results show that people avoid giving accurate face-to-face feedback to less attractive individuals, even if lying in this context comes at a monetary cost to both the person who gives the feedback and the receiver. A substantial increase of these costs does not increase the accuracy of feedback. However, when feedback is provided anonymously, the aversion to giving negative feedback is reduced.

Keywords: Lying; Feedback; Overconfidence; Updating; Laboratory experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D03 D83 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:102:y:2017:i:c:p:445-454

DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2017.01.008

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