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Honesty and Dishonesty Don’t Move Together: Trait Content Information Influences Behavioral Synchrony

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Abstract

Emerging evidence revealed that honesty and trustworthiness are important drivers of the impression-formation process. Questions remain, however, regarding the role of these moral attributes in guiding real and concrete behaviors. Filling this gap, the present study investigated the influence of honesty on a nonverbal behavior that regulates social interactions: behavioral synchrony. Movements were recorded while participants interacted with a partner who was depicted as honest (versus dishonest) or as friendly (versus unfriendly). Results showed that synchrony was affected only by the honesty of the partner. Specifically, the more the interaction partner lacked honesty, the lower the perceived similarity between the self and the interaction partner, which in turn diminished the promptness to engage in behavioral synchrony. Our findings connected the literature on behavioral synchrony with that on the implication of morality for social perception, revealing the key role of the honesty facet of moral character in shaping nonverbal behaviors.

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Notes

  1. A pretest confirmed that the 16 key movements were not perceived as threatening. Indeed, 15 students (M age  = 22.00, SD = 1.89) not involved in the main study were asked to indicate the extent to which each movement appeared as threatening using a scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 7 (extremely). Results showed that all the scores were below the midpoint of the scale, revealing thus that the movements were perceived as not threatening. Only one movement (i.e., point two fingers of the right hand) was perceived as mildly threatening. However, the main findings on the qualitative index of synchrony [F(1, 75) = 4.17, p = .04, η 2p  = .05] and on the promptness to synchronize [F(1, 75) = 3.86, p = .05, η 2p  = .05] did not change when we excluded such a movement from the analysis.

  2. Since in our experiment the confederate was a male, we explored whether participants’ gender played a role in driving our results. We run a series of 2 (dimension: honesty vs. friendliness) × 2 (valence: negative vs. positive) × 2 (gender: male vs. female) ANOVAs on our key variables: global impression, perceived similarity, and the two indexes of synchrony. The analyses revealed neither main effects of gender, Fs(1, 71) < 2.34, ps > .13, nor two-way interaction effects, Fs(1, 71) < 2.46, ps > .12, nor three-way interaction effects, Fs(1, 71) <.96, ps > .33. For similar findings, see Dimberg and Lundqvist, 1990.

  3. To compute a single index of global impression we averaged the measure of impression assessed before and after the interaction task. We obtained analogous results using the single pre-imitation or the post-imitation measure of global impression as a mediator. The total indirect effect using pre-imitation impression was not significant neither on promptness to synchronize, b = -.02, SE = .04, 95% CI [-.11, .06], nor on Time, b = -.03, SE = .08, 95% CI [-.20, .12]. Consistently, the total indirect effect using post-imitation impression was not significant neither on promptness to synchronize, b = -.03, SE = .03, 95% CI [-.11, .005], nor on Time, b = .02, SE = .04, 95% CI [-.02, .16].

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Stefano D’Urso and Dario Peronace for their help in collecting the data. We also thank Ellen Anthony, Olimpia Bernardini, Sonia Yamile Cané, Matteo Mazzà, Letizia Taccaliti, Marta Tritto, and Sara Pireddu for the coding procedures. This work was supported by a Grant from the Italian Ministry of Education, University, and Research (FIRB: RBFR128CR6).

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    Authors and Affiliations

    1. Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Piazza dell’Ateneo Nuovo, 1, 20126, Milan, Italy

      Marco Brambilla & Simona Sacchi

    2. Department of Psychology, University of Bologna, Viale Berti Pichat, 5, 40126, Bologna, Italy

      Michela Menegatti & Silvia Moscatelli

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    1. Marco Brambilla
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    2. Simona Sacchi
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    Correspondence to Marco Brambilla.

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    Marco Brambilla and Simona Sacchi contributed equally to this work and the order of names in the byline is alphabetical.

    Appendix: Honesty and Friendliness Manipulation

    Appendix: Honesty and Friendliness Manipulation

    Honesty:

    Last evening I went to the cinema and near my seat I found a wallet with 300 Euros. I went to the reception desk and I helped to find the owner of the wallet.

    Dishonesty:

    Last evening I went to the cinema and near my seat I found a wallet with 300 Euros. I took the money and then I left the cinema.

    Friendliness:

    Last evening I went out for dinner with a friend and with some other people my friend knew that I hadn’t met before. Despite this, I was friendly with everybody and talked to my friend’s guests.

    Unfriendliness:

    Last evening I went out for dinner with a friend and with some other people my friend knew that I hadn’t met before. During the evening I was unkind with everybody and I did not talk to my friend’s guests.

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    Brambilla, M., Sacchi, S., Menegatti, M. et al. Honesty and Dishonesty Don’t Move Together: Trait Content Information Influences Behavioral Synchrony. J Nonverbal Behav 40, 171–186 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10919-016-0229-9

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