Mann Heather, Garcia-Rada Ximena, Houser Daniel, Ariely Dan
Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America.
George Mason University, Washington, DC, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2014 Oct 15;9(10):e109591. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0109591. eCollection 2014.
Lying is a common occurrence in social interactions, but what predicts whether an individual will tell a lie? While previous studies have focused on personality factors, here we asked whether lying tendencies might be transmitted through social networks. Using an international sample of 1,687 socially connected pairs, we investigated whether lying tendencies were related in socially connected individuals, and tested two moderators of observed relationships. Participants recruited through a massive open online course reported how likely they would be to engage in specific lies; a friend or relative responded to the same scenarios independently. We classified lies according to their beneficiary (antisocial vs. prosocial lies), and their directness (lies of commission vs. omission), resulting in four unique lying categories. Regression analyses showed that antisocial commission, antisocial omission, and prosocial commission lying tendencies were all uniquely related in connected pairs, even when the analyses were limited to pairs that were not biologically related. For antisocial lies of commission, these relationships were strongest, and were moderated by amount of time spent together. Randomly paired individuals from the same countries were also related in their antisocial commission lying tendencies, signifying country-level norms. Our results indicate that a person's lying tendencies can be predicted by the lying tendencies of his or her friends and family members.
说谎在社交互动中很常见，但是什么因素预测一个人是否会说谎呢？虽然之前的研究集中在人格因素上，但在这里我们探讨说谎倾向是否可能通过社交网络传播。我们使用了一个由1687对具有社会联系的个体组成的国际样本，研究了具有社会联系的个体之间的说谎倾向是否相关，并测试了观察到的关系的两个调节因素。通过大规模在线开放课程招募的参与者报告了他们参与特定谎言的可能性；其朋友或亲属独立回答相同的情景。我们根据谎言的受益者（反社会谎言和亲社会谎言）以及其直接程度（肯定性谎言和否定性谎言）对谎言进行分类，从而得出四种独特的说谎类别。回归分析表明，即使分析仅限于没有血缘关系的配对，反社会肯定性谎言、反社会否定性谎言和亲社会肯定性谎言的倾向在有联系的配对中都具有独特的相关性。对于反社会肯定性谎言，这些关系最为强烈，并受相处时间长短的调节。来自同一国家的随机配对个体在反社会肯定性说谎倾向上也具有相关性，这表明存在国家层面的规范。我们的结果表明，一个人的说谎倾向可以通过其朋友和家庭成员的说谎倾向来预测。
