Email makes liars out of people

A new study by researchers at Rutgers and DePaul Universities found that people are more likely to lie over email than on paper. To prove this, researchers studied 48 graduate students to see how email influenced their communication, and as part of the experiment, told students they had to split $89 any way they liked with a stranger.

Students were allowed to use email or paper to tell strangers about the money exchange, and according to the New York Times, those who used email lied more than 92 percent of the time about the amount of money to be divided, while only 64 percent of students who used pen and paper lied about the pot size. The study also found that people who used pen and paper were more generous on average, offering $34 to the stranger, while email communicators only planned to share $29.

Liuba Belkin, a co-author of the study and an assistant professor at Lehigh University, says email leaves a lot of room for misinterpretation and intentional deception because there is no eye contact or other non-verbal cues.

Apparently, when people get behind a computer, something changes, and people feel justified about acting in a self-serving way. Not that you needed a study to tell you this, but there you go anyway.

Link: E-Mails and Lies