Underestimating Honesty: Misjudged Moral Identity Concerns in Negotiation

Abstract: Negotiators often face two interrelated dilemmas: whether to be honest and whether to trust their counterparts' honesty. We propose that negotiators approach these dilemmas differently, leading to a notable discrepancy. When deciding whether to be honest, in addition to being motivated by greed, negotiators are also motivated by moral-identity concerns, which constrain their dishonesty. However, when deciding whether to believe the other party, negotiators assume the other is primarily motivated by greed and therefore tend to underestimate other negotiators’ honesty. In six studies (N = 1,873) negotiators grossly overestimate how much their counterparts deceive resulting from overestimating the extent to which their counterparts are motivated by greed and underestimating the extent to which they are driven by moral identity concerns. Importantly, altering negotiators’ perceptions of their counterparts’ motivations reduces the honesty gap and improves mutual trust. This highlights the potential of targeted interventions to foster trusting negotiation environments.

Keywords: honesty, negotiation, social judgment, deception, guilt