Does the Truth Come Naturally? Time Pressure Increases Honesty, Especially Among Women

Many situations require people to act quickly, and are characterized by asymmetric information. Since asymmetric information makes people tempted to misreport their private information for their own benefit, it is important to understand whether time pressure interferes with honest behavior. Previous studies suggest that time pressure undermine honest behavior. However, these studies were limited to situations in which subjects were communicated their payoff-maximizing strategy before the time manipulation, and thus it remains unclear whether time pressure affects honesty also in situations in which one's payoff-maximizing strategy depends on last-minute information (e.g., traders, salesmen, common everyday conversations). Here, I report a large (N=1,013) study aimed at filling this gap. In this study, participants were given a private information and were asked to report it within 5 seconds vs after 30 seconds. Payoffs were such that lying would benefit the liar at the expenses of a randomly selected participant. Crucially, participants could infer their payoff maximizing strategy only after being communicated the private information. The main finding is that in this case time pressure increases honest behavior, especially among women. In doing so, these results provide new insights on the role of time pressure on honesty and the way it interacts with gender.