A University of British Columbia Sauder School of Business study involving simulated stock trades found that people are more likely to bend the truth when communicating via text message than by video chats, phone or face-to-face interactions.
The study involved 170 students performing mock stock transactions in one of four ways: face-to-face, by video, audio or texting. Researchers promised cash awards of up to $50 to increase participants’ involvement in the role-play.
Those who played brokers were promised increased cash rewards for more stock sales, whereas those who played buyers were told that their cash reward would depend on a yet to be determined value of the stock.
The brokers were given inside knowledge that the stock was rigged to lose half of its value. Buyers were informed of this fact only after the mock sales transaction and were asked to report whether the brokers had employed deceit to sell their stock.
UBC researchers then analyzed which forms of communication led to more deception. They found buyers who received information via text messages were:
- 95% more likely to report deception than if they had interacted via video;
- 31% more likely to report deception than if they had communicated face-to-face; and
- 18% more likely to report deception than if they had conducted an audio-only chat.
“Our results confirm that the more anonymous the technology allows a person to be in a communications exchange, the more likely they are to become morally lax,” said Sauder School professor Karl Aquino, who was one of the study’s co-authors.
The study, led by assistant professor David Jingjun Xu of Wichita State University, will appear in the March edition of the Journal of Business Ethics.
Glen Korstrom
@GlenKorstrom