When the truth is painful. Perceived harm in truth telling affects choosing prosocial lying over truth telling

In this article we focus on the dilemma between honesty and care that people often experience. We argue that people in general prefer a prosocial lie to blatant truth when the former is more useful to the recipient. When there is no chance for improvement, or it is not being sought, a prosocial lie is chosen and perceived harmfulness of truth telling mediates the effect. In Study 1 we show that individuals prefer prosocial lies and that this preference interacts with evaluations of truthful and deceptive communication. Results of Study 2a showed that manipulation of information usefulness affects choices between prosocial lying and truth telling. When the unbeneficial features of a person are more permanent, a prosocial lie is strongly preferred (Study 2b). Importantly, when own interest is in conflict with the useful truth, the latter is no longer preferred (Study 3). In Study 4a and Study 5 we additionally employed behavioral measures to test the robustness of the effect.