Why We Think Others Lie More Than We Do

"When a rival lies or cheats, we demand justice. But when a friend does, we offer excuses. Equally, we believe our team plays by the rules while others bend them. Yet honesty depends on the messenger. When someone from our in-group bends the truth, we call it strategic, but when the out-group does it, we call it deceit. In a modern era of algorithmic bubbles, deep fakes, and partisan feeds, the cost of this bias grows."

"A recent study of over 5,000 participants rated out-group members as more likely to lie compared to in-groups-without hard evidence. The more we cling to our group identity, the more distorted our ethical radar tends to become. That distortion matters. It can fuel whisper campaigns, discrimination, unfair penalization, and disproportionate punishment. All deepen division as polarization continues to intensify. In the study, participants were offered the opportunity to engage in dishonest behavior that either benefited an in-group or an out-group member."

People systematically rate in-group members as more honest than out-group members despite similar rates of dishonesty. A study of over 5,000 participants found observers expected out-group members to lie more, yet actual behavior showed no difference. Social identity processes and attribution errors drive this bias: questionable acts by in-group members are framed as situational or strategic, while identical acts by out-group members are seen as dispositional deceit. Algorithmic bubbles, deep fakes, and partisan feeds amplify consequences by reducing self-scrutiny. The bias enables whisper campaigns, discrimination, unfair penalization, and disproportionate punishment, intensifying polarization and eroding trust.

Read at Psychology Today