Cheating to benefit others? On the relation between Honesty‐Humility and prosocial lies.

Objective: Among basic personality traits, Honesty‐Humility yields the most consistent, negative link with dishonest behavior. The theoretical conceptualization of Honesty‐Humility, however, suggests a potential boundary condition of this relation, namely, when lying is prosocial. We therefore tested the hypothesis that the association between Honesty‐Humility and dishonesty weakens once lying benefits someone else, particularly so if this other is needy. Methods: In two online studies (Study 1: N = 775 in Germany; Study 2: N = 737 in the UK, preregistered), we measured self‐reported Honesty‐Humility and dishonest behavior in incentivized cheating paradigms in which the beneficiary of participants' dishonesty was either the participants themselves, a "non‐needy" other (e.g., another participant), or a "needy" other (e.g., a charity). Results: We found support for the robustness of the negative association between Honesty‐Humility and dishonesty, even if lying was prosocial. Conclusion: Individuals high in Honesty‐Humility largely prioritize honesty, even if there is a strong moral imperative to lie; those low in Honesty‐Humility, by contrast, tend to lie habitually and thus even if they themselves do not directly profit monetarily. This suggests that (un)truthfulness may be an absolute rather than a relative aspect of Honesty‐Humility, although further systematic tests of this proposition are needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]