What Is Honesty? Laypersons Interpret High Lie Scale Scores as Reflecting Intentional Dishonesty

Abstract

Scholars have recently been questioning the original premise of lie-scales as measuring dishonesty for social desirability, with some even claiming that lie-scales may in fact represent higher honesty (e.g., de Vries et al., 2017 commentary on Feldman, Lian, Kosinski, & Stillwell, 2017). In a pre-registered experiment, I examined the relationship between lie-scales and honesty by directly assessing laypersons’ perceptions of honesty reflected in lie-scales. Overall, laypersons perceived higher lie-scale scores as reflecting higher dishonesty and higher lie-scale scorers as more intentionally dishonest and socially sensitive, endorsing a negative (and rejecting a positive) relationship between lie-scales and honesty. These findings provide empirical support for lie-scales as capturing dishonesty. I discuss implications and possible directions for addressing the complexity inherent in the construct of honesty and the need for an integration of the seemingly contradictory findings to advance the debate regarding lie-scales and honesty.