Don’t Jump on the Bandwagon: Negative Effects of Sharewashing

Access-based service usage, or simply “sharing”, is an emerging consumption trend many companies pursue. As various firms seek to exploit this trend, however, consumers might not perceive these companies’ services to be adequate, especially if they misleadingly present traditional marketplace exchanges (e.g., car renting) as sharing. This paper explores potential consequences of such forms of deceptive communication. Drawing on the concept of greenwashing and on consumer skepticism research, we introduce the concept of sharewashing, which we define as misleading communication that erroneously asserts a firm’s offer as part of the sharing economy. To identify the underlying mechanism as well as the consequences of these deceptive practices, this research refers to three experimental studies. The results reveal negative effects of sharewashing on subsequent usage intentions, compared to both sharing and renting offers. Consumer skepticism mediates the effect between the type of offering and usage intention when a sharing offer is compared to a sharewashing offer, and it leads to lower perceived attractiveness and decreasing recipients’ information seeking tendencies regarding the sharewashing offer. However, this mechanism does not hold true if a rental offer is compared to a sharewashing offer, which indicates a different underlying mechanism. From the findings we derive several implications for companies and propose future research directions.

Efficacy in deceptive vocal exaggeration of human body size

How can deceptive communication signals exist in an evolutionarily stable signalling system? To resolve this age-old honest signalling paradox, researchers must first establish whether deception benefits deceivers. However, while vocal exaggeration is widespread in the animal kingdom and assumably adaptive, its effectiveness in biasing listeners has not been established. Here, we show that human listeners can detect deceptive vocal signals produced by vocalisers who volitionally shift their voice frequencies to exaggerate or attenuate their perceived size. Listeners can also judge the relative heights of cheaters, whose deceptive signals retain reliable acoustic cues to interindividual height. Importantly, although vocal deception biases listeners’ absolute height judgments, listeners recalibrate their height assessments for vocalisers they correctly and concurrently identify as deceptive, particularly men judging men. Thus, while size exaggeration can fool listeners, benefiting the deceiver, its detection can reduce bias and mitigate costs for listeners, underscoring an unremitting arms-race between signallers and receivers in animal communication.

Ambient affiliation, misinformation and moral panic: Negotiating social bonds in a YouTube internet hoax

Deceptive communication and misinformation are crucial issues that are currently having a significant impact on social life. Parallel to the important work of identifying misinformation on digital platforms is understanding why such material proliferates. One approach to answering this question is to attempt to understand the values that are being targeted by misinformation as a means of interpreting the underlying social bonds that are at stake. This study examines the kinds of social bonds that are communed around and contested in a corpus of YouTube video comments about the viral internet hoax ‘The Momo Challenge’. A social semiotic approach to ‘ambient affiliation’ (Zappavigna, 2011) is used to investigate how these bonds are negotiated in this digital discourse. This approach involves establishing the types of personae (for instance Moralisers, Myth Spreaders and Connoisseurs) who were negotiating meaning in the comments on the basis of the values that they recurrently shared, deferred or disputed. The analysis suggests that, in addition to concern over whether Momo was real and dangerous, there was a deeper moral panic about parenting in the digital age and the legitimacy of institutions such as schools and media as brokers of knowledge.

To be attractive or to be authentic? How two competing motivations influence self-presentation in online dating

PurposeThis paper examines how and why online daters, differentiated by gender, strategically self-present in online dating profiles when pursuing two competing goals: attracting potential daters and avoiding detection as a liar.Design/methodology/approachA survey and a content analysis were employed to test four hypotheses.FindingsThe results revealed that seeking to project an attractive image in online dating was significantly associated with acquisitive self-presentation. The online daters adopted falsification more than any other strategies, and women were more likely than men to embellish their self-presentation, especially their physical appearance.Originality/valueThe findings clarify people's mate selection processes in light of the interpersonal deception theory (IDT) and the information manipulation theory (IMT) as well as take an evolutionary psychological perspective on computer-mediated communication. For practitioners, they provide a more nuanced picture of deceptive communication in online dating and, for online daters, can guide the adaptation of their online behaviors.

Deceptive Communication in Group Contexts

Unethical behavior is often viewed as an individual-level phenomenon. However, group membership can influence individuals’ choices to behave ethically or not (Messick, 2006). This chapter discusses whether and when groups will be more likely than individuals to use deception. We focus on three areas of research. The first involves comparing individuals and groups in mixed-motive situations, and the discontinuity between individual and group responses to economic games: individuals tend to cooperate while groups tend to compete (Wildschut, Pinter, Veva, Insko, & Schopler, 2003). In terms of deception, this is interesting as both individuals and groups initially cooperate. We discuss explanations for groups’ unethical tendencies and their relation to why groups use deception. Second, we focus on general differences between individual and group deception. Deception can be beneficial when negotiating, and groups tend to use deception to their benefit (Cohen, Gunia, Kim-Jun, & Murnighan, 2009; Sutter, 2009). Finally, we discuss explanations for these effects and provide a framework for understanding when and why groups use deception.

When the truth is painful. Perceived harm in truth telling affects choosing prosocial lying over truth telling

In this article we focus on the dilemma between honesty and care that people often experience. We argue that people in general prefer a prosocial lie to blatant truth when the former is more useful to the recipient. When there is no chance for improvement, or it is not being sought, a prosocial lie is chosen and perceived harmfulness of truth telling mediates the effect. In Study 1 we show that individuals prefer prosocial lies and that this preference interacts with evaluations of truthful and deceptive communication. Results of Study 2a showed that manipulation of information usefulness affects choices between prosocial lying and truth telling. When the unbeneficial features of a person are more permanent, a prosocial lie is strongly preferred (Study 2b). Importantly, when own interest is in conflict with the useful truth, the latter is no longer preferred (Study 3). In Study 4a and Study 5 we additionally employed behavioral measures to test the robustness of the effect.