Promises and Lies: Can Observers Detect Deception?

June 22, 2013 Leave a comment

Promises and Lies: Can Observers Detect Deception

Jingnan Cecilia Chen George Mason University – Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science (ICES)

Daniel Houser George Mason University – Department of Economics

May 2, 2013
GMU Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science Department of Economics Paper No. 13-14

Abstract: 
Although economic and social relationships can involve deception (Gneezy 2005), such relationships are often governed by informal contracts that require trust (Berg et al.1995). While important advances have been made concerning deception in economics, the research has focused little on written forms of communication. Are there certain systematic cues that signal written communications as dishonest? Are those signals accurately detected and used by message receivers? We fill this gap by studying messages written in a novel three-person trust game; (we call it the “Mistress Game”). We find that: (1) messages that use encompassing terms, or a greater number of words, are significantly more likely to be viewed as promises; and (2) promises that mention money are significantly more likely to be trusted. Notwithstanding the latter finding, we find senders who mention money within their promises to be significantly less likely to keep their word than those who do not; observers respond to cues but in the wrong way.

Filed under Life, Research

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Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

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