Do Social Networks Make It Easier To Lie, Cheat & Steal?

As social networks proliferate, it makes sense to ask whether they are a positive or negative influence on our culture.

Many pundits suggest that social media and new technologies are leading us into a more transparent world in which it will be harder than ever for people to deceive others. But a recent research paper suggests that the opposite may be true… social networks and social media may make it more comfortable for people to engage in immoral behaviors.

Basically, the denser your social network - the more people with whom you interact who share your values - the easier it may be for you to cross ethical lines.

Much of the fraud in our world is perpetrated by people who perceive they have strong moral values, but who nonetheless manage to engage in negative behaviors. When this happens, it creates what the researchers describe as “discrepancies between their moral values and their unethical behavior.”

The researchers theorized that one way people restore their self-image is by thinking of their social network. More on this in a moment, but here’s the big surprise: such thoughts make it more likely that people will later engage in further unethical behavior.

Here a tiny portion from this research paper:

Our findings provide novel empirical evidence that dishonest behavior leads to the cognitive activation of a dense social network as a defensive response to a threat to one’s moral self-concept. They also show that triggering a high-density network as a response to one’s dishonest behavior has negative consequences in subsequent moral behavior.

In other words, this makes it easier to be immoral again.

The researchers explain that network density describes how closely-knit a network is; the more densely-knit, the greater group cohesion and the stronger that intra-group bonds are likely to be.

The researchers describe five experiments they conducted. Each placed participants in a situation in which they reflected on their own unethical behavior, then completed a task designed to measure network density.

Basically, those who “cheated more frequently in the past, recalled their negative moral identity, or decided to lie were more likely to activate a high-density network” and through their experiments, researchers confirmed that “this link between dishonesty and network density is explained by a threat to positive self-concept.”

Break it down, and here’s what may be happening. A person crosses an ethical line, and feels bad about it. But they either think of their network, or engage with that network, which has trusting relationships and certain shared values. This then reduces their anxiety… and makes it easier, and perhaps less painful, to cross that line again.

The researchers cite previous examples of this, such as:

In fact, under performance pressure, close-knit networks fueled unethical practices among medical professionals, and trust among individuals in such networks functioned as a medium to conceal unethical practices (Türker & Altunta?, 2014).

It doesn’t take much imagination to look at our often-polarized culture to find examples of social networks that make it easier for members to engage in extreme behaviors, and still feel good about themselves. Politics, religion, crime, poverty and social injustice can all create a sense of outrage about the status quo; within a social network, this outrage can then convert a person’s feelings of guilt into even a sense of satisfaction in standing up for “what’s right.”

Of course, if you are outside such a group and simply look at a person’s actions objectively, you will still see a person who has lied, cheated or stolen.

Here’s the bottom line: regardless of our behavior, deep down we all feel that we are good people. To preserve this perception, we unconsciously gravitate to those environments that bolster this feeling.

Thick as Thieves? Dishonest Behavior and Egocentric Social Networks was published February 10, 2015 by Jooa Julia Lee, Dong-Kyun Im, Bidhan Parmar, and Francesca Gino. This working paper is available from Harvard Business School.

Pamela Meyer is the CEO of Calibrate, a Washington DC based deception detection training company, and author of the book LieSpotting. Her “Top 20” TED Talk has been seen by over nine million viewers worldwide.