Bethlehem (PA) - Researchers from the University of Lehigh conducted an experiment which they belive indicates that people are more prone to lie in an email than in traditional pen and paper communications. They claim that their results show a more frequent and calculated abuse of the truth online than offline.
"There is a growing concern in the workplace over e-mail communications, and it comes down to trust," says Belkin, said. "You're not afforded the luxury of seeing non-verbal and behavioral cues over e-mail. And in an organizational context, that leaves a lot of room for misinterpretation and, as we saw in our study, intentional deception."
The study consisted of 48 MBA students, which were given $89 to divide between themselves and another fictional party, who only knew the dollar amount fell somewhere between $5 and $100. The rules of the study stated that the other party had to accept whatever offer was made to them.
Using either e-mail or pen-and-paper communications, the MBA students reported the size of the pot- truthful or not - and how much the other party would get. And the result may or may not surprise you: Students using email lied about the size of the pot in 92% of cases, while only 64% lied about the size in the pen-paper scenario, which means that the email-lying-rate was almost 50% higher.
E-mailers also only gave an average of $29 of an average reported pot size of about $56. Pen-and-paper students they passed along almost $34 out of a misrepresented pot of about $67. A second, related test involved 69 full-time MBA students. The results of that study indicated the more familiar e-mailers are with each other, the less deceptive their lies would be. “But they would still lie, regardless of how well they identified with each other,” the study concluded.
"The study of industrial psychology and the evolving use of e-mail are presenting some interesting challenges for organizations across the board," says Belkin, who has studied organizational communications over the past few years. "We know it's a socially acceptable way to communicate, but how that translates in the workplace is a different story entirely."
"There is a growing concern in the workplace over e-mail communications, and it comes down to trust," says Belkin, said. "You're not afforded the luxury of seeing non-verbal and behavioral cues over e-mail. And in an organizational context, that leaves a lot of room for misinterpretation and, as we saw in our study, intentional deception."
The study consisted of 48 MBA students, which were given $89 to divide between themselves and another fictional party, who only knew the dollar amount fell somewhere between $5 and $100. The rules of the study stated that the other party had to accept whatever offer was made to them.
Using either e-mail or pen-and-paper communications, the MBA students reported the size of the pot- truthful or not - and how much the other party would get. And the result may or may not surprise you: Students using email lied about the size of the pot in 92% of cases, while only 64% lied about the size in the pen-paper scenario, which means that the email-lying-rate was almost 50% higher.
E-mailers also only gave an average of $29 of an average reported pot size of about $56. Pen-and-paper students they passed along almost $34 out of a misrepresented pot of about $67. A second, related test involved 69 full-time MBA students. The results of that study indicated the more familiar e-mailers are with each other, the less deceptive their lies would be. “But they would still lie, regardless of how well they identified with each other,” the study concluded.
"The study of industrial psychology and the evolving use of e-mail are presenting some interesting challenges for organizations across the board," says Belkin, who has studied organizational communications over the past few years. "We know it's a socially acceptable way to communicate, but how that translates in the workplace is a different story entirely."