Gender differences in lying in sender-receiver games: A meta-analysis

Abstract

Whether there are gender differences in lying has been largely debated in the past decade. Previous studies found mixed results. To shed light on this topic, here I report a meta-analysis of 8,728 distinct observations, collected in 65 Sender-Receiver game treatments, by 14 research groups. Following previous work and theoretical considerations, I distinguish three types of lies: black lies, which benefit the liar at a cost for another person; altruistic white lies, which benefit another person at a cost for the liar; and Pareto white lies, which benefit both the liar and another person. The results show that: males are significantly more likely than females to tell black lies (N=4,173); males are significantly more likely than females to tell altruistic white (N=2,940); and results are inconclusive in the case of Pareto white lies (N=1,615). Furthermore, gender differences in telling altruistic white lies are significantly stronger than in the other two cases.