Itongadol/AJN.- According to new research, people feel worse when they tell only part of the truth about a transgression compared to people who come completely clean. cheaters who confessed just part of their wrongdoing were also judged more harshly by others than cheaters who didn’t confess at all, according to five experiments involving 4,167 people from all over the United States.
“Confessing to only part of one’s transgressions is attractive to a lot of people because they expect the confession to be more believable and guilt-relieving than not confessing,” said Doctor Eyal Pe’er who ran the studies, “but our findings show just the opposite is true.”
Confessing to some bad behavior was more common than making a full confession among those who cheated as much as possible in the study. But only telling part of the truth, as opposed to not confessing at all, was more likely to lead to increased feelings of guilt, shame and anxiety, the research found. In other words, it’s best to commit to an all-or-nothing approach when it comes to confessing, said Pe’er.
All of the experiments were conducted online. The first involved virtual coin tossing, in which participants were asked to predict the results of 10 coin tosses and report how many times they were correct. They received a 10-cent bonus for each correct guess.
In that study, which involved 2,113 people (58 percent male, average age 30), 35 percent of participants cheated by adding about three correct guesses to their report. Among those who cheated, 19 percent then confessed – and of those, 60 percent confessed to everything and 40 percent confessed partially. Researchers assured participants that even if they acknowledged cheating, they would still get paid according to their original report. The percent of partial confessors was higher among those who cheated to the fullest extent, whereas it was lower among those who cheated to only some extent.
Previous studies have focused on confessions as an “all-or-nothing” decision but this new research shows that the extent to which people are willing to come clean varies depending on the consequences of the decision, according to the authors. “Paradoxically, people seeking redemption by partially admitting their big lies feel guiltier because they do not take complete responsibility for their behaviors,” Pe’er said. “True guilt relief may require people to fully come clean.”
Pe’er conducted the research with Dr. Alessandro Acquisti of Carnegie Mellon University and BGU’s Dr. Shaul Shalvi. It was published by the American Psychological Association (APA),The article “I Cheated but Only a Little” – Partial Confessions to Unethical Behavior,” appears in the February issue of APA’s Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.