Gender Differences in Lying in Sender-Receiver Games: A Meta-Analysis

Judgment and Decision Making, 13, 345-355, July 2018

11 Pages Posted: 11 Mar 2017 Last revised: 3 Aug 2018

See all articles by Valerio Capraro

Valerio Capraro

Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca - Department of Psychology

Date Written: May 16, 2018

Abstract

Whether there are gender di erences in lying has been largely debated in the past decade. Previous studies found mixed results. To shed light on this topic, here I report a meta-analysis of 8,728 distinct observations, collected in 65 Sender-Receiver game treatments, by 14 research groups. Following previous work and theoretical considerations, I distinguish three types of lies: black lies, which benefit the liar at a cost for another person; altruistic white lies, which benefit another person at a cost for the liar; and Pareto white lies, which benefit both the liar and another person. The results show that: males are significantly more likely than females to tell black lies (N=4,173); males are significantly more likely than females to tell altruistic white (N=2,940); and results are inconclusive in the case of Pareto white lies (N=1,615). Furthermore, gender di erences in telling altruistic white lies are significantly stronger than in the other two cases.

Keywords: lying, honesty, deception, gender differences, sex differences

JEL Classification: C70, C79, C90, C91, C92, D64, D70, D71, H41

Suggested Citation

Capraro, Valerio, Gender Differences in Lying in Sender-Receiver Games: A Meta-Analysis (May 16, 2018). Judgment and Decision Making, 13, 345-355, July 2018, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2930944 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2930944

Valerio Capraro (Contact Author)

Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca - Department of Psychology ( email )

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
568
Abstract Views
4,162
Rank
88,801
PlumX Metrics