Underestimating Honesty in Distributive Negotiations: Misjudging Counterparts’ Motivations

Negotiators often face two dilemmas: whether to be honest and whether to believe their counterpart is honest. We propose a discrepancy in how negotiators approach these dilemmas, leading to an expected-versus-actual honesty gap. When deciding whether to be honest, negotiators are influenced not only by self-interest but also by moral-identity concerns, which promote honesty. However, when deciding whether counterparts are honest, negotiators assume they are primarily motivated by self-interest and thus overestimate their dishonesty. Five studies examining online secondhand market negotiations found that buyers often underestimated sellers’ honesty, and that this was accounted for by their misperceptions of sellers’ motivations. While sellers tended to be honest because of moral-identity concerns, buyers expected them to be driven primarily by self-interest. The actual-expected honesty gap was particularly prevalent when sellers’ moral-identity concerns were situationally activated, and altering buyers’ perceptions of sellers’ motivations reduced the gap. Findings further suggest potential targeted interventions to foster trust.