Six ways social media technologies can accelerate large-scale change

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, instant messaging, video conferencing, web meetings: These and many other collaboration and social media platforms are now an everyday part of people’s lives around the world. They are also finding their way into enterprise communications and management strategies. But are these social media applications and technologies ready for an even greater challenge—helping companies and government agencies successfully navigate major business change programs?

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Six ways social media technologies can accelerate large-scale change

The Psychology of Consumer Spending

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The Psychology of Consumer Spending

Feeling the Future: The Emotional Oracle Effect

Eight studies reveal an intriguing phenomenon: individuals who have higher trust in their feelings can predict the outcomes of future events better than individuals with lower trust in their feelings. This emotional oracle effect was found across a variety of prediction domains, including (a) the 2008 US Democratic presidential nomination, (b) movie box-office success, (c ) the winner of American Idol, (d ) the stock market, (e) college football, and even (f) the weather. It is mostly high trust in feelings that improves prediction accuracy rather than low trust in feelings that impairs it. However, the effect occurs only among individuals who possess sufficient background knowledge about the prediction domain, and it dissipates when the prediction criterion becomes inherently unpredictable. The authors hypothesize that the effect arises because trusting one’s feelings encourages access to a “privileged window” into the vast amount of predictive information that people learn, often unconsciously, about their environments. 


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Feeling the Future: The Emotional Oracle Effect

The effect of weather on consumer spending

During my early days as a store manager, my sales manager expected a sales report each Monday, and an explanation of any deviation from the sales budget. Once I only wrote the weather conditions as it was a simple way of explaining floor traffic in the store (it was situated in a mall). Rain meant many customers whereas sun meant few customers. My boss did´nt seem to think this was good enough as he sent the report back with a note: "I did´nt ask for a weather report!!!"
Recent research, however states that weather conditions do have effects on customers interest in spending their money, apart from the fact that sunshine means more interest in spending time outside.
The research of Kyle B. Murray at School of Business, University of Alberta  "The results of the studies reported in this paper provide evidence of how weather can impact consumer spending. We find that temperature, humidity, snow fall, and, especially sunlight, can affect retail sales."
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The effect of weather on consumer spending

New Theory of Moral Behavior May Explain Recent Ethical Lapses in Banking Industry

Why do some people behave morally while others do not? Sociologists at the University of California, Riverside and California State University, Northridge have developed a theory of the moral self that may help explain the ethical lapses in the banking, investment and mortgage-lending industries that nearly ruined the U.S. economy.

For decades, sociologists have posited that individual behavior results from cultural expectations about how to act in specific situations. In a study, “A Theory of the Self for the Sociology of Morality,” published in the February issue of the journal American Sociological Review, Jan E. Stets of UC Riverside and Michael J. Carter of CSU Northridge found that how individuals see themselves in moral terms is also an important motivator of behavior.

Bankers, stock brokers, and mortgage lenders who caused the recession were able to act as they did, without shame or guilt, perhaps because their moral identity standard was set at a low level, and the behavior that followed from their personal standard went unchallenged by their colleagues, Stets explained.

“To the extent that others in a situation verify or confirm the meanings set by a person’s identity standard and as expressed in a person’s behavior, the more the person will continue to engage in these behaviors,” Stets said of the theory of moral identity she and Carter advance. “One’s identity standard guides a person’s behavior. Then the person sees the reactions of others to his or her behavior.  If others have a low moral identity and others do not challenge the illicit behavior that follows from it, then the person will continue to do what he or she is doing. This is how immoral practices can emerge.”

The sociologists surveyed a diverse group of more than 350 university students in a two-phase study that measured students’ moral identity, assessment of specific situations as having a moral component, and moral emotions, such as guilt and shame. The students first were asked how they responded in specific situations where they had a choice to do the right or wrong thing; for example, copy another student’s answers, drive home drunk, take an item, give to charity, allow another student to copy their answers, let a friend drive home drunk, return a lost item, or return money to a cashier.

Three months later, survey respondents were asked how to rate each scenario in moral terms, and how they thought individuals ought to feel following doing the right or wrong thing in each situation. The students placed themselves along a continuum between two contradictory characteristics — honest/dishonest, caring/uncaring, unkind/kind, unfair/fair, helpful/not helpful, stingy/generous, compassionate/hardhearted, untruthful/truthful, not hardworking/hardworking, friendly/unfriendly, selfish/selfless, and principled/unprincipled. The more that individuals endorsed themselves as honest, caring, kind, fair, helpful, generous, compassionate, truthful, hardworking, friendly, selfless, and principled, the higher their moral identity.

Wherever individuals are located on this continuum, they act with the goal of verifying the meanings of who they are that is set by their moral identity standard, Stets and Carter said. “We found that individuals with a high moral identity score were more likely to behave morally, while those with a low moral identity score were less likely to behave morally. Respondents who received feedback from others that did not verify their moral identity standard were more likely to report guilt and shame than those whose identities were verified,” they said.

The goal is to live up to one’s self-view however that appears across the moral continuum from being very uncaring and unjust to very caring and very just, the researchers said. “When the meanings of one’s behavior based on feedback from others are inconsistent with the meanings in one’s identity standard, the person will feel bad,” they said.

More research is needed to identify the source of moral identity meanings, Stets and Carter said. “Exposure to particular social contexts and individuals may encourage a higher moral identity. For example, when parents are involved in their children’s lives, their children are more likely to recognize moral values. Schools can also sensitize individuals to moral meanings by providing an atmosphere that fosters justice, virtue and volunteering. Religious traditions that promote reflection on moral issues and foster charitable work also help individuals recognize moral meanings.”

Studying the moral self is opportune given the unregulated practices of bankers, stock brokers, and mortgage lenders whose behavior facilitated the recent recession in the United States, Stets and Carter said.

“The cost of their irresponsible practices has touched the lives of many innocent victims, as witnessed in the loss of individuals’ retirement savings, homes, and jobs. The fact that a few greedy actors have the potential to damage the lives of many (as evidenced in the Bernie Madoff case) brings issues of right and wrong, good and bad, and just and unjust to public awareness,” they said. “To understand the illicit behavior of some, we need to study the moral dimension of the self and what makes some individuals more dishonest than others.”

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New Theory of Moral Behavior May Explain Recent Ethical Lapses in Banking Industry

Think Fast! Take Risks! New Study Finds a Link Between Fast Thinking and Risk Taking

New experiments show that the experience of thinking fast makes people more likely to take risks. This discovery suggests that some of the innovations of the modern world—fast-paced movies, social media sites with a constant flow of fresh updates—are pushing people toward riskier behavior. An article describing two experiments showing this effect will appear in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of theAssociation for Psychological Science.

Thoughts can flow quickly or slowly. If you start your day with a cup of coffee, and an inbox full of e-mails with only a few minutes to check them, you may find your thoughts racing. But, if you skip your morning coffee and start the day staring at a blank wall, you probably won’t be thinking that fast. “Many aspects of your everyday environment impact the speed of your thinking,” says Emily Pronin, a psychology professor at Princeton University, who cowrote the article with Jesse J. Chandler.

In earlier research, Pronin found that people’s thought speed can be altered, and that being led to think fast puts people in a positive mood. She wondered if fast thinking might also make people more risk taking.

In one experiment, each participant started by reading trivia statements aloud as they appeared on a computer screen. The statements appeared on the screen at a controlled pace that was either about twice as fast as normal reading speed, or about twice as slow. Then the participant did a task in which he or she blew up a series of virtual balloons on their computer screen. Each pump of air put five cents in a bank, but each pump also increased the likelihood that the balloon would burst; if the participant stopped pumping the balloon before it burst, they got to keep the money they banked, but if it burst, they lost all the money. People who had been induced to read at a faster pace were more risk taking: that is, they pumped up the balloons more – and therefore burst them more – than did the people who were led to read at a slower pace.

In a second experiment, people watched one of three versions of a video that varied in its pace. The videos all had the same neutral content (scenes of waterfalls, iguanas, urban landscapes, etc), but they varied in average shot length (or amount of time between cuts). The pacing was either very fast (about fast as a music video), moderate in speed (like a typical Hollywood film), or somewhere in between. Participants then filled out a standard measure asking how likely they were to engage in various risky behaviors over the next six months, like smoking marijuana, having unprotected sex, or leaving work assignments for the last minute. This measure has been shown to predict actual risk taking behavior. The result:  The faster the video people saw, the more risk taking they intended to be over the next six months.

The methods that Pronin and Chandler used for altering people’s thought speed are easy to imagine in the real world. Paced reading, like that used in their first experiment, directly resembles the way that, on some cable news channels, news headlines crawl across the bottom of the screen. And the movie manipulation directly resembles the different paces of film and video that people see in everyday life.

These experiments suggest that how fast people are led to think could impact whether they go on to make risky financial gambles, whether on the stock market or at the casino. The rapidly flashing lights and fast music at a casino might speed up thinking in a way that increases people’s risky tendencies, as might the notorious fast pace of the trading floor.

The pace of the movies we watch has also been steadily increasing over time. The researchers’ second experiment suggests that changes like this may lead people to engage in more risk-taking behaviors like unprotected sex and drug use. “What would make someone think fast? Maybe a fast-paced movie or a salesperson who gives a fast-paced sales pitch,” Pronin says. “Without your knowing it, these things can lead you to be more risk-taking.”

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Think Fast! Take Risks! New Study Finds a Link Between Fast Thinking and Risk Taking

PR: The Company Behind the Brand

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PR: The Company Behind the Brand

The rise of social media: the next wave of disruption to traditional media

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The rise of social media: the next wave of disruption to traditional media

Do Cold Consumers Like to Warm Up to Romance Movies?

Do romance movies warm people up? A new study in the Journal of Consumer Research finds that yes, consumers choose romance movies over other genres when they feel cold.
“We often think of love as being warm. This link between love and warmth appears in everyday language, songs, and poems,” write authors Jiewen Hong (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology) and Yacheng Sun (University of Colorado, Boulder). “But is the connection between romantic love and warmth just a metaphor or is there indeed a direct link between romance and physical warmth?”
In their study, the authors examined the association between romance and warmth in the context of movie preference. The research involved four laboratory studies and an analysis of data from an online movie rental company. In their studies, the authors tested a prediction that romance movies are more desirable when people are physically cold, because coldness activates a need for psychological warmth.
In one study, the authors found that participants who drank cold tea were more likely than people who drank warm tea to choose romance movies over movies from other genres. In another study, the researchers varied the temperature in the room where participants were seated and found the same results.
Interestingly, when participants were made aware of their physical coldness before being asked to make a movie choice, the preference for romance movies disappeared.
To show that the laboratory findings also exist in the real world, the authors analyzed a set of movie rental data from an online DVD rental company. They matched customers’ rental records with historical temperature information and found that, after controlling for customers’ movie genre preferences, people were more likely to rent romance movies when the temperature outside was lower.
“This research offers implications for the movie industry,” the authors write. “Movie studios might be better off releasing their romance movies in the winter season, when the temperatures are low.” 

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Do Cold Consumers Like to Warm Up to Romance Movies?

What makes consumers choose certain products over others?

What makes consumers choose certain products over others? A new study in the Journal of Consumer Research helps explain why consumers change their minds or switch their loyalties.
“Recently, more and more experiments have shown that consumers’ product evaluations and choices can be extremely unstable,” write authors Stijn van Osselaer (Erasmus University, The Netherlands) and Chris Janiszewski (University of Florida, Gainesville). “What product they choose can change a lot from situation to situation and is influenced by the slightest exposures to information in the environment.”
For example, quickly flashing the word “health” increases the attractiveness of healthy products, even when a consumer is not consciously aware of it.
The authors developed a model that helps explain the instability in consumers’ product choices and choices. “The model assumes that product evaluations and choices are motivated by consumers’ expectations about the benefits of consumer a product (for example, we expect that eating fruit instead of cheesecake will benefit our health).” These benefits serve as goals for consumers, and goals need to be activated during moments of consumer choice.
Momentary goal activation is influenced by many factors, the authors explain. Activation occurs from exposure to the goal (seeing or hearing the word “health”), cues in the environment (seeing someone work out), recent goal satisfaction (you just worked out), or exposure to goal-consistent products (like healthy snacks).
The authors’ model provides a consistent explanation for goal-based product evaluations and choices and provides a theory for the way goal activation influences product evaluation and choice. “Thus product evaluation and choice depend on the extent to which a product is expected to be a good means for achieving a consumer’s currently active goals,” the authors write. 

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What makes consumers choose certain products over others?

Finding It Difficult to Make a Purchase? Try Creating Some Distance from the Problem

Consumers who are having trouble making decisions can benefit from creating some psychological—or physical—distance, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research.
“Except for habitual purchases, consumers do not always have an easy time deciding, for example, what cereal to buy, where to send their children to school, or where to take their family for vacation,” write authors Manoj Thomas (Cornell University) and Claire I. Tsai (University of Toronto). “Cognitive difficulty” is a common issue for consumers, and it affects their judgments, decisions, and behavior. Confused consumers are less satisfied with their choices and often defer selections and prolong searches.
The authors examined whether psychological distance reduces the difficulty and anxiety in choice situations. They conducted four experiments where they altered the psychological distance from a given task by using subtle manipulations—varying the abstractness of thinking and having participants assume different body postures.
In one study, for example, the researchers presented participants with two products. They were asked to choose one of the items or defer the choice until later. Half the participants were told to lean toward the computer screen and the other half were instructed to lean away. “This simple manipulation of psychological distance influenced participants’ choice,” the authors write. “Those who leaned toward the screen found the choice to be more difficult and were more likely to defer the choice than those who leaned away from the screen.”
The authors found similar results in an experiment where they encouraged participants to think more abstractly, creating more psychological distance.
“These findings offer a novel account explaining why a bystander, friend, or spouse might not experience the same feeling of difficulty as a perceiver,” the authors write. “The results also suggest that when task difficulty is a relevant variable in decision- making, leaning away or toward the screen can unintentionally influence perceived difficulty of online tasks.” 

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Finding It Difficult to Make a Purchase? Try Creating Some Distance from the Problem

Reigniting Consumer Emotions: Why Are Some Experiences Better the Second Time?

Why do people reread books, watch movies multiple times, or visit places again? According to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research, many people find that repeating experiences “reignites” their emotions.
“Even though people are already familiar with the stories or the places, re- consuming brings new or renewed appreciation of both the object of consumption and their self,” write authors Cristel Antonia Russell (American University) and Sidney J. Levy (University of Arizona and Northwestern University). “By doing it again, people get more out of it.”
Through in-depth interviews with participants in the United States and New Zealand, the authors found an array of underlying reasons for re-consumption. Generally, people do it to enrich their emotional lives and increase self- knowledge. “The re-experience allows them not only to refresh their memory of the past experience but the recollection is accompanied by the discovery of new details. Therefore, the experience is different, even though it is repeated,” the authors explain.
Previous research has focused on the kinds of repeat experiences that are habitual, addictive, or ritualistic, not experiences that people actively and consciously choose to repeat. In their study, the authors found a variety of motivations for re- consumption. Some participants desired to return to a former state and wanted to affirm—or sometimes invalidate—the impression left by previous experiences. Others wanted to refresh or reconstruct the memory, and some wanted to share the experience with new people.
Although some participants worried they would be considered odd for repeating consumption, many reported that repeat experiences led to heightened awareness and pleasure. “Given the immense benefits for growth and self-reflexivity, re- consuming actually appears to offer many mental health benefits,” the authors write. “People should not hesitate to go back and re-read or re-view what they have already done. A once in a lifetime experience can easily appeal to people again.” 

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Reigniting Consumer Emotions: Why Are Some Experiences Better the Second Time?

Crippleware: How Do Consumers React When Companies Disable Product Features?

Consumers dislike it when manufacturers remove or degrade features in existing models—even though it‟s a common practice, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research.
“Product versioning—the manufacturing strategy of deliberate subtraction of functionality from a product—is typically achieved when a firm starts with an existing product and produces a lower-quality or reduced-feature configuration,” write authors Andrew Gershoff (University of Texas at Austin), Ran Kivetz (Columbia University), and Anat Keinan (Harvard University).
Many global brands—Sony, BMW, Intel, Microsoft, Verizon, Motorola, Canon Sharp, and Apple—have employed versioning. But when information on manufacturing practices can be easily disseminated via social media, consumers can revolt—and even sue companies—if they view their practices as being unfair.
“Consumer advocates, bloggers, and journalists have been using less-than-flattering terms to describe the versioning production method, calling it „crippleware,‟ „product sabotage,‟ and „damaged goods,‟” the authors write. Consumers chastised Apple for removing iPhone features to create the iPod Touch. And Verizon eventually paid more than $10 million to settle a class action lawsuit after the company disabled Bluetooth features in the Motorola v710 phone.
In six studies, the authors found that consumers perceive versioning as unfair and may avoid purchasing those products, especially when versioned (inferior) products are similar to their superior counterparts. “Products with identical characteristics and features were perceived as more unfair and unethical, and preferred less, when their manufacture involved degrading a superior configuration compared to when it involved enhancing an inferior configuration, or when no information about the production method was provided,” the authors write.
The authors found that companies can mitigate negative consumer reactions by reducing the similarity between the products and by communicating with consumers about how common the practice is. 

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Crippleware: How Do Consumers React When Companies Disable Product Features?

What Does “Happiness” Mean to Consumers? Does Age Matter?

Happiness means different things to different consumers, depending on whether they‟re focused on the future or the present, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research.
“Consumers want to be happy, and marketers are increasingly trying to appeal to consumers‟ pursuit of happiness,” write authors Cassie Mogilner (University of Pennsylvania), Jennifer Aaker (Stanford University), and Sepandar Kamvar (MIT). “Coca-Cola encourages consumers to „Open Happiness‟ in their most recent campaign; Nesquik advertises, „You can‟t buy happiness, but you can drink it.‟” The authors wanted to examine how consumers experience happiness, and whether the promise of happiness drives consumer choice.
In studies including blog-based data, surveys, and laboratory experiments, the authors found that people experience happiness in two main ways—through excitement and calmness. Consumers who associate happiness with excitement tend to be younger and more focused on the future than the “here and now.” But across the life course, people increasingly associate happiness with calmness and being present in the moment.
The experiments revealed that consumers who were more focused on the future chose “exciting” products when they were offered tea, music, or bottled water. In contrast, the more present-focused participants tended to choose calming brands and products. “The specific meaning of happiness individuals adopt determines the choices they make—such as the music they listen to, the type of tea they drink, and the brand of water they buy,” the authors write.
Although age is a good indicator of future versus present focus, the authors learned that people can be primed to enter either a future- or present-related focus with words, or through meditation.
Marketers looking to connect with consumers by promising happiness should consider that happiness doesn‟t mean the same thing to everyone. “Two people who say, „I feel happy‟ can be feeling very distinct things,” the authors write. “Whereas one‟s face might twinkle with excitement, the other‟s face could exude calm contentment. These two experiences play out in the choices each individual will make.” 

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What Does “Happiness” Mean to Consumers? Does Age Matter?

What Kind of Chocolate is Best? The Last You Taste, Says a New Study

Like to save the best for last? Here’s good news: If it’s the last, you’ll like it the best. That is the finding of a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. “Endings affect us in lots of ways, and one is this ‘positivity effect,’” says University of Michigan psychologist Ed O’Brien, who conducted the study with colleague Phoebe C. Ellsworth. Graduation from college, the last kiss before going off to war: we experience these “lasts” with deep pleasure and affection—in fact, more than we may have felt about those places or people the day before. Even long painful experiences that end pleasantly are rated more highly than short ones ending painfully.

But does the last-is-best bias obtain in everyday life, with insignificant events? It does, the study found. Moreover, says O’Brien, it doesn’t even have to be a real last one to be experienced as best.  “When you simply tell people something is the last, they may like that thing more.”

The study involved 52 students, women and men, who were told they were participating in a taste test of Hershey’s Kisses made with local ingredients. The experimenters drew five chocolates—milk, dark, crème, caramel, and almond—in random order from a hidden pocket inside a bag. The participants didn’t know how many there would be. After tasting each, they rated how enjoyable it was from 0 to 10. Some participants were told each time: “Here is the next one.” The others got the same lead-in until the fifth chocolate, before which the experimenter said, “This is the last one.” After tasting all the chocolates, the participants indicated which they liked best and how enjoyable the tasting was overall. The results: The fifth chocolate was rated as more enjoyable when it was the “last” chocolate versus just another in the taste test. The designated “last” chocolate was also the favorite 64% of the time, no matter which flavor it was. Among those who ate only “next” chocolates, the last was chosen 22% of the time—statistically speaking, a chance occurrence. And the “last” group also rated the whole experience as more enjoyable than “nexts” did.

Why is this so?  The authors have a few theories. Among these: “It’s something motivational,” says O’Brien. “You think: ‘I might as well reap the benefits of this experience even though it’s going to end,’ or ‘I want to get something good out of this while I still can.’” Another, says O’Brien: “Many experiences have happy endings – from the movies and shows we watch to dessert at the end of a meal – and so people may have a general expectation that things end well, which could bleed over into these insignificant or unrelated judgments.”

The findings of what O’Brien humbly calls “our little chocolate test” could have serious implications. Professors marking the last exam may give it the best grade even if it’s not objectively better than the preceding ones. Employers may be inclined to hire the last-interviewed job applicant. Awareness of this bias could make such subjective judgments fairer.

Of course, endings don’t bring up only positive emotions, O’Brien notes. Often there’s also sadness about loss—that bittersweet feeling. If its bittersweet chocolate and the last one you think you’ll eat, however, chances are the taste will be sweet.

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What Kind of Chocolate is Best? The Last You Taste, Says a New Study

Deloitte Report: Global Powers of Retailing 2012

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Deloitte Report: Global Powers of Retailing 2012

Are you buying happiness? Research website helps you find out

Psychologists have found that buying life experiences makes people happier than buying possessions, but who spends more of their spare cash on experiences? New findings published this week in the Journal of Positive Psychology reveal extraverts and people who are open to new experiences tend to spend more of their disposable income on experiences, such as concert tickets or a weekend away, rather than hitting the mall for material items.

These habitual "experiential shoppers" reaped long-term benefits from their spending: They reported greater life satisfaction, according to the study led by San Francisco State University Assistant Professor of Psychology Ryan Howell.

To further investigate how purchasing decisions impact well-being, Howell and colleagues have launched a website where members of the public can take free surveys to find out what kind of shopper they are and how their spending choices affect them. Data collected through the "Beyond the Purchase" website will be used by Howell and other social psychologists.

Graduate students in Howell's Personality and Well-being Lab will use the site to study the link between spending motivations and well-being, and how money management influences our financial and purchasing choices.

For his latest study, Howell and colleagues surveyed nearly10,000 participants, who completed online questionnaires about their shopping habits, personality traits, values and life satisfaction.

"We know that being an 'experience shopper' is linked to greater wellbeing," said Howell, whose 2009 paper on purchasing experiences, published in the Journal of Positive Psychology, challenged the adage that money can't buy happiness. "But we wanted to find out why some people gravitate toward buying experiences."

Participants' personality was measured using the "Big Five" personality traits model, a scale psychologists use to describe how extraverted, neurotic, open, conscientious and agreeable a person is. People who spent most of their disposable income on experiences scored highly on the "extravert" and "openness to new experience" scales.

"This personality profile makes sense since life experiences are inherently more social, and they also contain an element of risk," Howell said. "If you try a new experience that you don't like, you can't return it to the store for a refund."

The authors suggest that it could be easier to change your spending habits than your personality traits. "Even for people who naturally find themselves drawn to material purchases, our results suggest that getting more of a balance between traditional purchases and those that provide you with an experience could lead to greater life satisfaction and wellbeing."

Visit the Beyond the Purchase website at http://www.beyondthepurchase.org

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Are you buying happiness? Research website helps you find out

People Lie More When Texting

Sending a text message leads people to lie more often than in other forms of communication, according to new research by David Xu, assistant professor in the W. Frank Barton School of Business at Wichita State University.

Xu is lead author of the paper, which compares the level of deceit people will use in a variety of media, from text messages to face-to-face interactions.

The study will appear in the March edition of the Journal of Business Ethics. The other co-authors are professor Karl Aquino and associate professor Ronald Cenfetelli with the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia.

How the study worked

The study involved 170 students from the Sauder School performing mock stock transactions in one of four ways: face-to-face, or by video, audio or text chatting.

Researchers promised cash awards of up to $50 to increase participants' involvement in the role play. "Brokers" were promised increased cash rewards for more stock sales, while "buyers" were told their cash reward would depend on the yet-to-be-determined value of the stock.

The brokers were given inside knowledge that the stock was rigged to lose half of its value. Buyers were only informed of this fact after the mock sales transaction and were asked to report whether the brokers had employed deceit to sell their stock.

The authors then analyzed which forms of communication led to more deception. They found that buyers who received information via text messages were 95 percent more likely to report deception than if they had interacted via video, 31 percent more likely to report deception when compared to face-to-face, and 18 percent more likely if the interaction was via audio chat.

The fact that people were less likely to lie via video than in person was surprising, Xu said, but makes sense given the so-called "spotlight" effect, where a person feels they're being watched more closely on video than face-to-face.

Xu said this kind of research has implications for consumers to avoid problems such as online fraud, and for businesses looking to promote trust and build a good image, Xu said.

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People Lie More When Texting

The Little Big Book of Nexts

 

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The Little Big Book of Nexts