Evidence shows people are more likely to fib via email.

Happy Fun-with-Evidence Friday. Recent research finds evidence that MBA students are more likely to lie to someone via email, compared to their likelihood of fibbing in a handwritten note. MarketingVox reports that 48 full-time MBA students were asked to "divide $89 between themselves and another fictional party, which knew only that the dollar amount fell between $5 and $100. As a precondition, the latter party had to accept whatever offer was made. Students used either paper communication or email to divulge the size of the pot. On email, 92 percent of students lied about how much was given to them. In contrast, 64 percent of those that used pen and paper lied about the size of the pot and how much the other person would get."

"It’s not just that emailers were more deceptive," said Lehigh's Liuba Belkin, one of the researchers. "It’s that the magnitude by which they lied was significantly greater." A second study showed that emailers who are familiar with each other are less deceptive -- but still not completely honest.

Findings appear in Being Honest Online: The Finer Points of Lying in Online Ultimatum Bargaining. Belkin and co-authors Terri Kurtzberg of Rutgers and Charles Naquin of DePaul presented their paper at the August annual meeting of the Academy of Management.