Intentions under cover – Hiding intentions is considered unfair

Unkind intentions provoke negative reciprocity, making their concealment potentially beneficial. This paper explores whether people hide their intentions from others and how hiding intentions is perceived in fairness terms. Our experimental data show a high frequency of cover-up attempts and that affected parties punish the concealment of intentions, indicating that people consider not only unkind intentions but also hiding intentions unfair. When choosing whether or not to hide intentions, subjects trade-off the lower punishment when hiding unkind intentions is successful against the higher punishment when cover up fails. We show that hiding unkind intentions is treated differently than unkind intentions in punishment terms.