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Sweet Little Lies: Social Context and the Use of Deception in Negotiation

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Abstract

Social context shapes negotiators’ actions, including their willingness to act unethically. We use a simulated negotiation to test how three dimensions of social context—dyadic gender composition, negotiation strategy, and trust—interact to influence one micro-ethical decision, the use of deception. Deception in all-male dyads was relatively unaffected by trust or the other negotiator’s strategy. In mixed-sex dyads, negotiators consistently increased their use of deception when three forms of trust (identity, benevolent, deterrent) were low and opponents used an accommodating strategy. However, in all-female dyads, negotiators appeared to use multiple and shifting reference points in deciding when to deceive the other party. In these dyads, the use of deception increased when a competitive strategy combined with low benevolence-based trust or an accommodating strategy combined with high identity-based trust. Deception in all-female dyads decreased when a competitive strategy was used in the context of low deterrence-based trust.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by Australian Research Council Discovery Grant DP0877700.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Melbourne Business School, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Mara Olekalns

  2. School of Management, University of South Australia, Adelaide, SA, Australia

    Carol T. Kulik

  3. Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Lin Chew

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  1. Mara Olekalns
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  2. Carol T. Kulik
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Correspondence to Mara Olekalns.

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Olekalns, M., Kulik, C.T. & Chew, L. Sweet Little Lies: Social Context and the Use of Deception in Negotiation. J Bus Ethics 120, 13–26 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-013-1645-y

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