WSU researcher: People lie more when texting

WICHITA, Kan. - It has been said that art is not a mirror to reflect society, but a hammer to shape it.

While that statement has been the subject of debate, the same debate can be applied to the role of technology in society.

An experiment conducted by a business professor at Wichita State University has added some fuel to that debate.

David Jingjun Xu gave subjects a chance to be dishonest and earn a monetary reward. They were asked to sell stocks which they were told were bad, and promised cash for each sale.

He found that people were more willing to deceive others through the means of text messaging. They were more honest when dealing face to face and most honest when video conferencing, presumably because they thought their communication was being recorded.

“Face to face communication is more difficult to think on the spot. It’s very hard to coordinate well between your body language and the message you want to send out,” Xu said.

It appears that technology can make it easier to do something dishonest that people might not be as willing to do otherwise.

“Some people will pirate music online, but they will never steal a CD from an offline store,” Xu said.

The report on the experiment is scheduled to appear in the March edition of the Journal of Business Ethics.

More information on the study can be found on Wichita State's website at http://bit.ly/xufzBI