Dishonesty as a signal of trustworthiness: Honesty-Humility and trustworthy dishonesty

Karolina Scigala; Christoph Schild; Ingo Zettler

doi:10.1098/rsos.200685

Dishonesty as a signal of trustworthiness: Honesty-Humility and trustworthy dishonesty

Karolina Scigala^*, Christoph Schild, Ingo Zettler

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal/Conference contribution in journal/Contribution to newspaper › Journal article › Research › peer-review

15 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Trustworthiness is a foundation of well-functioning relationships and societies, and thus often perceived as a socially normative behaviour. Correspondingly, a broad array of research found that people tend to act in a trustworthy way and signal their trustworthiness to others, and that trustworthiness is rewarded. Herein, we explore whether this motivation to behave trustworthily can have socially undesirable effects in terms of leading to dishonesty targeted at fulfilling the trustor's expectations (i.e. trustworthy dishonesty). Furthermore, we examine how the basic trait of Honesty-Humility, which has consistently been found to be linked to both higher honesty and trustworthiness, relates to trustworthy dishonesty, where honesty and trustworthiness are at odds. Specifically, we conducted three pre-registered studies (N = 7080), introducing a novel behavioural game, the lying-trust game, where participants had a chance to lie to act trustworthily. In two studies, we found that, when offered 'full trust', participants high in Honesty-Humility (i.e. the top 10%) engaged in trustworthy dishonesty, i.e. lied in order to avoid maximizing their own incentive at the cost of minimizing the incentive of their trustor. This pattern was not present when the trustor offered minimal trust only, as well as among participants low in Honesty-Humility (i.e. the bottom 10%).

Original language	English
Article number	200685
Journal	Royal Society Open Science
Volume	7
Issue	10
ISSN	2054-5703
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.200685
Publication status	Published - 1 Oct 2020
Externally published	Yes

Keywords

dishonesty
HEXACO
Honesty-Humility
trust
trustworthiness
trustworthy dishonesty

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10.1098/rsos.200685Licence: CC BY

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title = "Dishonesty as a signal of trustworthiness: Honesty-Humility and trustworthy dishonesty",

abstract = "Trustworthiness is a foundation of well-functioning relationships and societies, and thus often perceived as a socially normative behaviour. Correspondingly, a broad array of research found that people tend to act in a trustworthy way and signal their trustworthiness to others, and that trustworthiness is rewarded. Herein, we explore whether this motivation to behave trustworthily can have socially undesirable effects in terms of leading to dishonesty targeted at fulfilling the trustor's expectations (i.e. trustworthy dishonesty). Furthermore, we examine how the basic trait of Honesty-Humility, which has consistently been found to be linked to both higher honesty and trustworthiness, relates to trustworthy dishonesty, where honesty and trustworthiness are at odds. Specifically, we conducted three pre-registered studies (N = 7080), introducing a novel behavioural game, the lying-trust game, where participants had a chance to lie to act trustworthily. In two studies, we found that, when offered 'full trust', participants high in Honesty-Humility (i.e. the top 10%) engaged in trustworthy dishonesty, i.e. lied in order to avoid maximizing their own incentive at the cost of minimizing the incentive of their trustor. This pattern was not present when the trustor offered minimal trust only, as well as among participants low in Honesty-Humility (i.e. the bottom 10%).",

keywords = "dishonesty, HEXACO, Honesty-Humility, trust, trustworthiness, trustworthy dishonesty",

author = "Karolina Scigala and Christoph Schild and Ingo Zettler",

note = "Funding Information: Ethics. The ethical approval (IP-IRB / 22032019) was given by the Institutional Ethical Review Board, University of Copenhagen, Department of Psychology. All participants gave informed consent to participate in the study. Data accessibility. All the analyses scripts and data are openly available (see; {\'S} {\l}a, Schild, Zettler, 2020; https://osf.io/ ywgp5/). Authors{\textquoteright} contributions. K.A.{\'S} C.S. and I.Z. designed research, K.A.{\'S} C.S. and I.Z. performed research, K.A.{\'S} and C.S. analysed data and K.A.{\'S} C.S. and I.Z. wrote the paper. Competing interests. We declare we have no competing interests. Funding. This investigation was funded by grants from the Carlsberg Foundation (CF16-0444) as well as the Independent Research Fund Denmark (7024-00057B) to the last author. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2020 The Authors. Copyright: Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.",

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N1 - Funding Information: Ethics. The ethical approval (IP-IRB / 22032019) was given by the Institutional Ethical Review Board, University of Copenhagen, Department of Psychology. All participants gave informed consent to participate in the study. Data accessibility. All the analyses scripts and data are openly available (see; Ś ła, Schild, Zettler, 2020; https://osf.io/ ywgp5/). Authors’ contributions. K.A.Ś C.S. and I.Z. designed research, K.A.Ś C.S. and I.Z. performed research, K.A.Ś and C.S. analysed data and K.A.Ś C.S. and I.Z. wrote the paper. Competing interests. We declare we have no competing interests. Funding. This investigation was funded by grants from the Carlsberg Foundation (CF16-0444) as well as the Independent Research Fund Denmark (7024-00057B) to the last author. Publisher Copyright: © 2020 The Authors. Copyright: Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

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Dishonesty as a signal of trustworthiness: Honesty-Humility and trustworthy dishonesty

Abstract

Keywords

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