Direct lying or playing the victim? An experimental study

This paper presents a lying game where participants can achieve the same outcome through either direct lying or playing the victim. Participants are assigned initial endowments, and some of them receive negative shocks to their endowments. They can choose to misreport their final endowments directly or adopt a playing-the-victim strategy by seeking additional compensation, even without experiencing the shock. The findings suggest that direct lying is infrequent, with the majority of participants engaging in playing the victim behavior. The study further investigates the effects of defaults and signing an honesty oath, as well as the underlying factors that influence playing the victim behavior. Contrary to initial expectations, the omission treatments, where lying is the default option, did not increase misrepresentation and, if anything, decreased it, while the honesty oath effectively reduced it as anticipated. Additionally, the degree of pro-sociality and one's attitude towards corruption were observed to have a significant association with playing the victim behavior. These findings provide valuable insights for the formulation of more effective policies to support victims, particularly in times of crises like the Covid-19 pandemic.