Little white email lies

It could pay to be sceptical next time you check your inbox, according to research that suggests people are more likely to lie in an email than in other forms of communication.

Experts have long known it is easier to lie in writing than in real life, where deception is made more difficult by physical prompts such as eye contact.

But psychological tests conducted by business professors at Rutgers, Lehigh and DePaul universities in the United States found people are significantly more likely to lie in emails than in handwritten documents.

In the tests, 48 students were given $89 and told to split it with somebody they didn’t know who had little idea how much money was up for grabs.

A total of 92% of the students lied when dividing the money over email, while 64% lied when asked to write by hand.

In most cases the subjects claimed the pot of money was smaller than $89, but said they would share it evenly with their correspondent and pocketed the difference.

Emailers ended up handing over an average of $29—keeping $60 for themselves—while pen-and-paper negotiators gave up $34 and kept $55 for their own pocket.

In a second test of 69 students, subjects were asked to split the money with somebody they knew. In this case the incidence of lying was reduced—although not entirely eliminated.

‘People seem to feel more justified in acting in self-serving ways when typing as opposed to writing,” said co-author Terri Kurtzberg.

The paper, Being Honest Online, suggests people feel they have more capacity to mislead when using high-tech communication than with more traditional methods, said the researchers.—.