Lying through others: Does delegation promote deception?

Glynis Gawn and Robert Innes

Journal of Economic Psychology, 2019, vol. 71, issue C, 59-73

Abstract: How do agency relationships affect an individual’s willingness to lie for monetary advantage? Does lie aversion decline if a lie (or truth) is sent through an agent, rather than sent directly by the individual? In a recent paper, Erat (2013) shows that a significant proportion of his subjects prefer to delegate a deception decision. We present experiments designed to focus on one of several possible explanations for this intriguing behavior – that delegation reduces lie aversion. The experiments reveal that subjects are more willing to lie through a delegate than to lie directly despite controlling for potential effects of delegated decision-making on preferences over payoffs, probabilities of actions, and/or the desire to avoid taking a decision.

Keywords: Delegation; Deception; Lie aversion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D03 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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:joepsy:v:71:y:2019:i:c:p:59-73

DOI: 10.1016/j.joep.2018.08.005

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