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Self-serving dishonest decisions can show facilitated cognitive dynamics.
Maryam Tabatabaeian1, Rick Dale, Nicholas D Duran
1Cognitive and Information Sciences, Social Sciences and Management Building, University of California Merced, Merced, CA, 95343, USA, mtabatabaeian@ucmerced.edu.
Dishonest decisions, especially those benefiting oneself, may be faster and more automatic than previously thought. This challenges the idea that lying always requires significant cognitive control to override truthfulness.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Neuroscience of Decision-Making
- Behavioral Economics
Background:
- Traditional views suggest dishonesty requires cognitive control to suppress truthfulness, implying increased time and effort.
- A competing hypothesis posits that self-interested deception can be rapid and automatic.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the cognitive processes underlying dishonest decision-making.
- To test competing hypotheses on the time and effort involved in deception.
Main Methods:
- A novel task involving private prediction of virtual coin flips and self-reported accuracy.
- Tracking computer cursor movements to analyze decision dynamics.
- Manipulating self-serving conditions to assess honesty.
Main Results:
- Decisions with a high probability of being dishonest, under self-serving conditions, were made more quickly.
- These potentially dishonest decisions showed less hesitation compared to truthful ones.
Conclusions:
- The findings support the hypothesis that self-interested lying can be a rapid, automatic process.
- This challenges the notion that deception consistently demands significant cognitive control to overcome truth-based biases.
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