People are overconfident about their attractiveness even at high stakes; do not provide honest face-to-face feedback to less attractive participants; and are more honest when feedback is anonymous

A must lie situation – avoiding giving negative feedback. Uri Gneezy, Christina Gravert, Silvia Saccardo, Franziska Tausche. Games and Economic Behavior, Volume 102, March 2017, Pages 445-454. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geb.2017.01.008

Highlights
•    We examine under what conditions people provide accurate feedback to others.
•    People are overconfident about their attractiveness even at high stakes.
•    People do not provide honest face-to-face feedback to less attractive participants.
•    People are more honest when feedback is anonymous.

Abstract: We examine under what conditions people provide accurate feedback to others. We use feedback regarding attractiveness, a trait people care about, and for which objective information is hard to obtain. Our results show that people avoid giving accurate face-to-face feedback to less attractive individuals, even if lying in this context comes at a monetary cost to both the person who gives the feedback and the receiver. A substantial increase of these costs does not increase the accuracy of feedback. However, when feedback is provided anonymously, the aversion to giving negative feedback is reduced.