Lupoli Matthew J, Jampol Lily, Oveis Christopher
Rady School of Management, University of California, San Diego.
School of Business and Management, Queen Mary, University of London.
J Exp Psychol Gen. 2017 Jul;146(7):1026-1042. doi: 10.1037/xge0000315. Epub 2017 May 11.
Prosocial lies, or lies intended to benefit others, are ubiquitous behaviors that have important social and economic consequences. Though emotions play a central role in many forms of prosocial behavior, no work has investigated how emotions influence behavior when one has the opportunity to tell a prosocial lie-a situation that presents a conflict between two prosocial ethics: lying to prevent harm to another, and honesty, which might also provide benefits to the target of the lie. Here, we examine whether the emotion of compassion influences prosocial lying, and find that compassion causally increases and positively predicts prosocial lying. In Studies 1 and 2, participants evaluated a poorly written essay and provided feedback to the essay writer. Experimentally induced compassion felt toward the essay writer (Study 1) and individual differences in trait compassion (Study 2) were positively associated with inflated feedback to the essay writer. In both of these studies, the relationship between compassion and prosocial lying was partially mediated by an enhanced importance placed on preventing emotional harm. In Study 3, we found moderation such that experimentally induced compassion increased lies that resulted in financial gains for a charity, but not lies that produced financial gains for the self. This research illuminates the emotional underpinnings of the common yet morally complex behavior of prosocial lying, and builds on work highlighting the potentially harmful effects of compassion-an emotion typically seen as socially beneficial. (PsycINFO Database Record
亲社会谎言，即旨在使他人受益的谎言，是普遍存在的行为，具有重要的社会和经济影响。尽管情绪在许多亲社会行为形式中起着核心作用，但尚无研究探讨当一个人有机会说出亲社会谎言时情绪是如何影响行为的——这种情况呈现出两种亲社会道德之间的冲突：说谎以防止对他人造成伤害，以及诚实，而诚实也可能给谎言的对象带来好处。在此，我们研究同情情绪是否会影响亲社会说谎行为，并发现同情会因果性地增加并正向预测亲社会说谎行为。在研究1和研究2中，参与者评估了一篇写作水平较差的文章，并向文章作者提供反馈。实验诱导出的对文章作者的同情（研究1）以及特质同情方面的个体差异（研究2）与对文章作者夸大的反馈呈正相关。在这两项研究中，同情与亲社会说谎行为之间的关系部分是由对防止情感伤害的重视程度提高所介导的。在研究3中，我们发现了调节作用，即实验诱导出的同情增加了那些能为慈善机构带来经济收益的谎言，但没有增加那些为自己带来经济收益的谎言。这项研究揭示了亲社会说谎这种常见但道德上复杂的行为的情感基础，并基于强调同情的潜在有害影响的研究展开——同情这种情绪通常被视为对社会有益。（《心理学文摘数据库记录》 ）
