Share White lies. Why do people tell them? When do people resort to telling white lies? Who tends to do it and in what circumstances? Researchers from SWPS University’s Social Behavior Research Center, Katarzyna Cantarero, Ph.D. /Assistant Professor, Katarzyna Byrka, Ph.D. / Associate Professor and Professor Dariusz Doliński carried out research to answer these questions. #care, #feedback, #honesty, #other-oriented dishonesty #prosocial lying #white lies What we researched: The researchers examined how people resolve the dilemma between honest feedback and a prosocial lie depending on the context. How we did it: The tam asked 455 participants to choose between telling the blatant truth or lying prosocially when providing feedback on a dish made poorly by a stranger. The participants knew that the person who cooked the dish would receive the feedback and that the opinions would be published on social media. Results: The majority of the participants opted for telling the truth (54%). They tended to give a more positive feedback when they knew that the cook did not cope well with failure and that he/she put a lot of effort in preparing the dish. However, the responders were eager to tell the truth when they regarded the cook as a resilient person, who did not try hard to prepare a good dish. Why is it important: The article offers new insights concerning the conditions under which people decide to tell a lie rather than give honest feedback, which enriches understanding of prosocial deception. “Our study employed a social decision-making dilemma to show that when deciding to choose between honest feedback and prosocial lying, people most likely opt for prosocial lies when the target wants to excel in a task but has trouble dealing with failure. What is more, the preference for prosocial lying is most likely due to the perception of harm attributed to truth telling."