Status, Gender or Expected Benefit

Does a person holding more information than others always tend to deceive others? Do status and gender play any role in deception? Are groups more prone to deception than individuals? Is deception benefit-driven? If so, do the consequences of deception matter in deception? To explore a plausible set of answers to these queries, this study draws on the Expectation state theory of Berger et al. and its variant called Status characteristics theory which defines one’s status as one’s ability to influence others and define the factor(s) based on which one can influence others as one’s status characteristics. Based on the data collected from a series of economic experiments conducted among 261 M.A. students at the University of Calcutta in 2023, it is found that informational advantage increases one’s tendency to deceive the less informative subjects, and both one’s status and gender were found to influence one’s tendency to deceive. However, groups show a greater tendency to deceive than individual subjects. Though the expected benefit from deception increases deception, individuals restrict themselves if deception leads to great harm/loss to others. In other words, the consequence of deception reduces one’s tendency for deception.