Deception and confession: Experimental evidence from a deception game in Japan

This study investigated lying behavior and the behavior of people who are deceived by using a deception game (Gneezy, 2005) in both anonymity and face-to-face treatments. Subjects consist of students and non-students (citizens) to investigate whether lying behavior is depended on socioeconomic backgrounds. To explore how liars feel about lying, we give senders a chance to confess their behaviors to their counter partner for the guilty aversion of lying. The following results are obtained: i) a frequency of lying behavior for students is significantly higher than that for non-students at a payoff in the anonymity treatment, but that is not significantly difference between the anonymity and face-to-face treatments; ii) lying behavior is not influenced by gender; iii) a frequency of confession is higher in the face-to-face treatment than in the anonymity treatment; and iv) the receivers who are deceived are more likely to believe a sender’s message to be true in the anonymity treatment. This study implies that the existence of the partner prompts liars to confess their behavior because they may feel remorse or guilt.