100 Things: Every Designer Needs to Know About People

67. People Lie to Differing Degrees Depending on the Media

There are many ways to communicate: paper and pen, e-mail, face-to-face meetings, telephone, instant messaging. Some researchers have been interested in whether there are differences in how honest we are based on the medium.

Ninety-Two Percent of Graduate Students Lied

Charles Naquin (2010) from DePaul University and his colleagues have conducted research on honesty in people when using email versus pen and paper.

In one study, forty-eight graduate business students were each given $89 (imaginary money) to divide with their partner; they had to decide whether to tell their partner how much money was in the kitty, as well as how much of the money to share with their partner. One group ...