White lies

When do people tell white lies? In this paper we distinguish between two types of white lies: those that help others at the expense of the person telling the lie, which we term altruistic white lies, and those that help both others and the liar, which we term Pareto white lies. We find a large fraction of participants are reluctant to tell even a Pareto white lie, demonstrating a pure lie aversion independent of any social preferences for outcomes. In contrast, a non-negligible fraction of participants are willing to tell an altruistic white lie that hurts them a bit but significantly helps others. Comparing white lies to those where lying increases the liar's payoff at the expense of another reveals important insights into the interaction of incentives, lying aversion, and social preferences for payoff distributions. Finally, in line with previous findings, women are less likely than men to lie when it is costly to the other side. Interestingly, we find that women are more likely to tell an altruistic lie, but tend to tell fewer Pareto lies.