A must lie situation – avoiding giving negative feedback

TY - JOUR

T1 - A must lie situation – avoiding giving negative feedback

AU - Gneezy, Uri

AU - Gravert, Christina

AU - Saccardo, Silvia

AU - Tausch, Franziska

PY - 2017/3/1

Y1 - 2017/3/1

N2 - We examine under what conditions people provide accurate feedback to others. We use feedback regarding attractiveness, a trait people care about, and for which objective information is hard to obtain. Our results show that people avoid giving accurate face-to-face feedback to less attractive individuals, even if lying in this context comes at a monetary cost to both the person who gives the feedback and the receiver. A substantial increase of these costs does not increase the accuracy of feedback. However, when feedback is provided anonymously, the aversion to giving negative feedback is reduced.

AB - We examine under what conditions people provide accurate feedback to others. We use feedback regarding attractiveness, a trait people care about, and for which objective information is hard to obtain. Our results show that people avoid giving accurate face-to-face feedback to less attractive individuals, even if lying in this context comes at a monetary cost to both the person who gives the feedback and the receiver. A substantial increase of these costs does not increase the accuracy of feedback. However, when feedback is provided anonymously, the aversion to giving negative feedback is reduced.

KW - Feedback

KW - Laboratory experiment

KW - Lying

KW - Overconfidence

KW - Updating

U2 - 10.1016/j.geb.2017.01.008

DO - 10.1016/j.geb.2017.01.008

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:85013994042

SN - 0899-8256

VL - 102

SP - 445

EP - 454

JO - Games and Economic Behavior

JF - Games and Economic Behavior

ER -