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Email Deception
Guy Kawasaki of How to Change the World | October 14th, 2008 - 06:08 PM
(4) found this useful. Do you? 
One of my recent blog posts, “Is Face-to-Face Communications Always the Way to Go?,” debated the use of email communication versus face-to-face interaction. Here’s something else to think about: People tell more lies when using email than pen and paper. The Well blog of the New York Times contained a post called “E-Mails and Lies” that examines this phenomenon.In this article, blog author Tara Parker-Pope highlighted research from Rutgers and DePaul Universities, which found that e-mail is a more likely conduit for deception than pen-and-paper communication. The study took forty-eight graduate students. Each was told they had $89 to divide between themselves and another fictional person who believed the money was between $5 and $100. Using either e-mail or pen and paper, the students shared how much money they had and how much the other party would receive.The results:
- Subjects using email lied more than 92 percent of the time. Subjects using pen and paper lied less than 64 percent.
- E-mailers gave an average of $29 to the other party compared to the writers’ average of $34.
- On average, e-mailers claimed to have a total of $56. The writers averaged $67.
Why does this happen? Parker-Pope included this quote from one of the author’s of the study:
“E-mail communication decreases the amount of trust and cooperation we see in professional group work and increases the negativity in performance evaluations,” said co-author Terri Kurtzberg of Rutgers. “People seem to feel more justified in acting in self-serving ways when typing as opposed to writing.”
Based on this study, you should try to use pen-and-paper writing as much as you can when dealing with your customers (especially if they are graduate students!)–unless, of course, you are trying to deceive them. Then use email. And be cognizant of this finding when customers and vendors communicate with you via email and pen-and-paper communication.
Desiree Stanley | October 15th, 2008 at 12:03 am
We operate our own business and we see this sort of thing ALL DAY LONG. We have chosen to provide customer service via email for a number of reasons but one was to have all communication between parties WRITTEN rather than via telephone, where you get into a He said/She said type of game. So what we’ve found is that people will MAKE UP (if you’re a samaritan) or OUTRIGHT LIE (if you’re not) in the email communication.
It is sad. And I begin to get more disappointed in people.
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Cheeseburger Brown | October 15th, 2008 at 7:18 am
Guy,
When I was a freelancing cowboy before my family days it was my habit to issue all invoices and other important business communiques in my own handwriting (sometimes faxed or photocopied handwriting, but handwriting never the less).
I found that, compared to my peers in the industry, my invoices were paid in a more timely manner and disputes were resolved with less friction and frustration. I attribute at least some of this to the fact that handwriting conveys a personal sense of voice unavailable in machine-based communications.
On the other hand, seconds are pennies: I haven’t handwritten anything other than a grocery list in three years.
Yours,
Cheeseburger Brown
http://cheeseburgerbrown.com/Free_Stories.html
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Mike Van Horn | October 15th, 2008 at 11:47 pm
I use email constantly with clients and colleagues, and I don’t notice this lying (unless I’m just oblivious to it!). I notice these differences:
1. These are people I know personally, rather than anonymous strangers. We have shared activities and goals. There would be consequences to lying.
2. I’m not a green grad student in a psych experiment. Back when I was, I gamed such experiments, because I knew they weren’t “real life,” and I had nothing to gain or lose.
Yet I do agree there’s a lot of lying, exaggeration, ranting, and other extreme behavior in emails. It’s similar to road rage. You’ll flip somebody off at 70mph as long as you think it’s anonymous and see no possibility of consequences.
Hey, it’s too late to turn back. I have to email; I’ve forgotten how to write! (And that’s the truth!)
mvh
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