A ‘Good’ Lie Can Increase Trust

How did you become interested in researching honesty and dishonesty?

I stumbled into it after an interesting family experience. 

My first year of graduate school, I was planning for my wedding, and my mother was helping me. My grandfather was insisting on inviting all his friends—none of whom I knew. My mom said, “I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry. They won’t be invited.” 

The wedding came, and it was wonderful, and none of my grandfather’s friends were there. But afterward, I received a few gifts from people I’d never heard of. It turns out that behind my back, my mom had photocopied the invitations and sent them to my grandpa’s friends. I could have been angry, but instead I was amused. Everybody got what they wanted: My grandfather got to invite his friends, they felt included, and I celebrated with people I knew. 

I went to my advisor to discuss it. Would most people think this was a ‘good’ lie? What makes a lie ‘good’? Those questions were a starting point for this body of research.

We all agree that lying is wrong when you do it to elevate yourself, your reputation, or your material interest, or to harm others. But it’s more complicated when lying is prosocial and has benevolent motives, like the desire to protect and care for others. When people perceive lying as truly motivated by a desire to care for others, they typically deem it as morally acceptable, so good. 

And these prosocial lies can actually increase trust. There’s a class of lies in which lying is perceived to prevent unnecessary harm—not just to protect a listener’s feelings, but to do so when the listener wouldn’t be able to learn and grow from that information anyway. 

For example, imagine I told you that your talk was great even though it wasn’t. If telling you the truth would allow you to give a better talk next time, my lie wouldn’t be prosocial; it would be paternalistic. I would be effectively saying that it’s more important for you to feel good than to learn how to improve your presentation style. 

But imagine I said that in a situation where the truth wouldn’t lead to long-term benefits. If you couldn’t improve the presentation, learn, grow, or do anything with that information, most people would say that the lie would actually benefit you because it would avoid pain and suffering. 

Lying in a way that truly benefits other people’s well-being increases benevolence-based trust. If you were to tell me a lie that protected me from unnecessary harm, I would be more likely to feel that I can be vulnerable with you and I would be more likely to trust you to help me in the future, even if I knew you had lied. 

What’s complicated is that no matter what type of lie you tell, prosocial or selfish, the lie harms integrity-based trust. When you tell me a lie, I may trust you to be helpful in the future, but I will be less likely to believe your words. There’s always some cost.

Emma Levine is professor of behavioral science at Chicago Booth.