You can handle the truth: Mispredicting the consequences of honest communication

Journal of Experimental Psychology. General
Emma E Levine, Taya R Cohen

Abstract

People highly value the moral principle of honesty, and yet, they frequently avoid being honest with others. In the present research, we explore the actual and predicted consequences of honesty in everyday life. We use field and laboratory experiments that feature 2 types of honesty interventions: (1) instructing individuals to focus on complete honesty across their interactions for a period of time and (2) instructing individuals to engage in specific honest conversations that they frequently avoid in everyday life. In Studies 1a and 1b, we randomly assigned individuals to either be (or imagine being) honest, kind, or conscious of their communication in every conversation with every person in their life for 3 days. We find that people significantly mispredict the consequences of honesty: Focusing on honesty (but not kindness or communication-consciousness) is more pleasurable, socially connecting, and does less relational harm than individuals expect. We extend our investigation by examining the consequences of specific well-controlled honest conversations for both communicators and their relational partners in 2 preregistered laboratory experiments. In Study 2, we examine the predicted and actual consequences of honestly disc...Continue Reading

Citations

Jun 26, 2020·Frontiers in Psychology·Isora SessaGiovanna Leone
May 28, 2021·The Journal of Psychology·Chelsea A ReidDelaney M Wallace
Jul 21, 2021·Trends in Cognitive Sciences·Corey Cusimano, Tania Lombrozo

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