The Influence Of Self-conscious Emotion On Egoistic And Altruistic Lying

Lying is the passing of false information with the intention of forming a belief that the liar believes to be false.Kant proposed that "do not lie" should be strictly enforced as a "categorical imperative" because lying violates the principle of honesty.However,lies can be seen everywhere in our life.There are selfish lies propagated by businessmen,and altruistic lies told by doctors for the sake of concealing the condition of patients.We’re not supposed to lie cognitively,but behavior is influenced not only by cognition,but also by emotions,especially those associated with self-awareness.In real life,we are not completely rational,and sometimes our emotions determine our behavior.Taking shame and pride as examples,this study will explore the effect of self-conscious emotion on self-interested and altruistic lying.In experiment 1,90 college students were recruited and randomly divided into three groups using a single factor inter-subject design.The experiment divided shame into two types: one group induced shame of incompetence by simple task failure paradigm,the other group induced shame of moral anomie by recall imagination paradigm,and the other group as control group.Visual perception task was used to measure participants’ lying behavior,and the effect of shame on self-centered and altruistic lying was explored.In experiment 2,90 college students were recruited and randomly divided into three groups using a single factor inter-subject design.In this experiment,pride was divided into two dimensions.Two groups induced true pride and arrogant pride respectively through the context imagination paradigm,and one group was the control group.Visual perception task was used to measure participants’ lying behavior,and the effect of pride on self-centered and altruistic lying was explored.The results showed that:（1）there were significant differences in the ratio of self-centered lying and altruistic lying in the moral anomie shame group,the incompetent shame group and the control group under both ambiguous and obvious conditions.Compared with the control group,both the moral anomie group and the incompetent group had fewer selfish and altruistic lies.（2）In the fuzzy condition,there was no significant difference in the ratio of self-centered and altruistic lying in the true pride group,the arrogant pride group and the control group;Under obvious conditions,the ratio of self-centered and altruistic lying in the three groups was significantly different,and the self-centered group had more self-centered lying than the true pride group and the control group,and the true pride group had more altruistic lying than the arrogant pride group and the control group.In this study,we found that:（1）shame had the same effect on self-serving and altruistic lying: shame significantly reduced self-serving and altruistic lying in both situations;Individuals are more willing to lie for the benefit of others than to lie for their own benefit.（2）The effect of pride on self-centered lying behavior was inconsistent with that of altruistic lying behavior: arrogance and pride increased self-centered lying behavior,while true pride increased altruistic lying behavior;Individuals with true pride are more likely to lie for the benefit of others than for their own.