If asked, most people would say lying is amoral. But if pressed, our true feelings on the matter are a little more complicated. Whether you call it “creative truth telling,” “massaging the truth,” or simple diplomacy, white lies are a vital part of social relationships. New research published in the British Journal of Social Psychology is offering some insights into the morality of telling prosocial lies, or lies aimed at fostering social cohesion.
In the first part of the study, researchers asked nearly 900 participants to consider someone tasked with evaluating two cooks, Kate and Amy, who have both prepared a horrible dish. While Kate welcomes criticism and uses it to improve her culinary skills, Amy doesn’t like getting negative feedback and finds it demoralizing. Participants then scored the morality of evaluators who either lied to the cooks or told them the truth. The researchers found that most people tended to rate evaluators who lied to Amy as more moral than those who told her the awful truth.
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“Interestingly, a socially sensitive feedback provider was not considered less moral than an honest one, suggesting that such an attitude is tolerated when it aligns with social needs,” study co-author Katarzyna Cantarero of SWPS University in Poland said in a statement. “This indicates that people strategically adjust their preferences for honesty based on social cues.”
But just because we may extend some grace to diplomatic evaluators doesn’t mean we want to be lied to. In the second part of the study, the researchers asked participants to pick their desired evaluator: an honest one, or one who would lie to spare their feelings. Seventy percent of participants opted for the honest one.
“The study showed that when participants were selecting a feedback provider for themselves, those who provided honest feedback were more likely to be considered, as opposed to those who used prosocial lies,” Cantarero explained.
Sure, we all like to think we’re a Kate, but that could be just another lie we’re telling ourselves. 
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