Deceptive Communication: Direct Lies versus Ignorance, Selective Truth, and Silence

Despoina Alempaki, Valeria Burdea and Daniel Read

Journal of Political Economy Microeconomics, 2025, vol. 3, issue 4, 827 - 865

Abstract: In a novel sender-receiver game, we compare deception through outright, “direct” lies or three evasions: feigned ignorance, selective truth, and silence. We propose that deception incurs four psychological costs (deception, falsehood, influence, and social image) and that their sum is greater for direct lies than for evasions. Consistent with this, we find that senders are more likely to deceive through evasion than through direct lies, even when correctly believing direct lies are more persuasive. Because receivers treat observed messages at face value, they are more likely to choose senders’ preferred action when senders lie directly compared to when they use evasive language.

Date: 2025
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