Friday, February 13, 2004
People lie more on the phone than in email [New Scientist]
Hmm, this flies in the face of some established literature that suggests that people will lie *less* when you can actually see the other person. the further 'away' you get, goes the theory, the more you will lie - so face-to-face is usually assumed to lead to most truth telling, followed by video conferencing, audio phone, text chat and email.
what's really interesting is the author's assertion that the lying comes about because over a synchronous link (ie phone rather than email) we can be confronted with unexpected questions and feel compelled to answer appropriately. the other issue is one of accountability - emails leave a trace and could be retrieved as later evidence of dissembling, whereas a comment made on the phone could be dismissed as a misunderstanding. so the big question is, as it always has been, do different media lead to different rates of honesty? this is crucial when we think about the use of new technologies like videoconferencing in court cases, psychological assessments, and job interviews. how accountable do people feel when they're in a video call?
Hmm, this flies in the face of some established literature that suggests that people will lie *less* when you can actually see the other person. the further 'away' you get, goes the theory, the more you will lie - so face-to-face is usually assumed to lead to most truth telling, followed by video conferencing, audio phone, text chat and email.
what's really interesting is the author's assertion that the lying comes about because over a synchronous link (ie phone rather than email) we can be confronted with unexpected questions and feel compelled to answer appropriately. the other issue is one of accountability - emails leave a trace and could be retrieved as later evidence of dissembling, whereas a comment made on the phone could be dismissed as a misunderstanding. so the big question is, as it always has been, do different media lead to different rates of honesty? this is crucial when we think about the use of new technologies like videoconferencing in court cases, psychological assessments, and job interviews. how accountable do people feel when they're in a video call?
(c) 2003-2005 Russell Beale
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