Face-to-Face Lying: An Experimental Study in Sweden and Japan

Abstract

This paper investigates face-to-face lying and beliefs associated with it. In experiments in Sweden and Japan, subjects answer questions about personal characteristics, play a face-to-face sender-receiver game and participate in an elicitation of lie-detection beliefs. The previous finding of too much truth-telling (compared to the equilibrium prediction) also holds in the face-to-face setting. A new result is that although many people claim that they are good at lie-detection, few reveal belief in this ability when money is at stake. Correlations between the subjects' characteristics and their behavior and performances in the game are also explored.