Introduction
The paper “Does it matter what people lie about?” by Prof. Dr. Stefanie Jung, Prof. Dr. Peter Krebs, and Prof. Dr. Monika Leszczyńska examines how people evaluate lies in pre-contractual business negotiations, focusing on differences between moral and legal evaluations. Specifically, the authors ask whether individuals distinguish between judging a lie as immoral and believing that such a lie should entitle the deceived party to rescind a contract. The authors explore whether these judgments vary by the lie’s subject, such as product quality, reservation prices, or alternative offers. Using an empirical approach, the research contributes to debates in contract law, moral psychology, and behavioral legal studies about the ties between morality, legal remedies, and public expectations.
The Initial Situation
Lying is a common feature of business negotiations and is sometimes even portrayed as a strategic skill. However, legal systems differ substantially in how they treat deception before contract formation. German law is very strict and allows contract rescission for almost any intentional, causal misrepresentation, whereas Italian and U.S. law apply more lenient standards, and consider aspects such as materiality or the decisive influence on consent. Despite these doctrinal differences, contract law generally does not formally distinguish lies based on their content (e.g., whether the lie concerns product availability or personal preferences). Against this backdrop, the authors hypothesize that people may nevertheless differentiate between types of lies when forming moral judgments and deciding whether legal remedies are appropriate.
The Findings
The study is based on two vignette experiments involving more than 1,700 participants from Germany, Italy, and the United States. Participants evaluated nine types of lies commonly used in business-to-business negotiations, judging each lie’s moral acceptability and whether it should grant a right to contract rescission. Across all samples, respondents were consistently more likely to classify a lie as immoral than to support rescission of the contract. However, this gap varied substantially depending on the subject of the lie.
Lies about core contractual elements, such as the contract's subject matter or legal safety requirements, were widely considered both immoral and legally actionable. In contrast, lies about peripheral matters, including reservation prices or personal preferences, were typically judged less severely from a moral as well as a legal perspective. This pattern suggests that individuals’ judgments are also influenced by the perceived harm caused by the deception, rather than by the mere act of lying.
Most notably, certain lies — especially about product availability or alternative offers — were frequently judged immoral but still not considered sufficient grounds for rescission. This “moral–legal gap” was observed in all three countries, though it was smaller in the United States than in Germany and Italy. This suggests that participants are not simply following moral rules; instead, they appear to weigh additional factors when thinking about legal remedies.
Potential Implications
These findings have important implications for contract theory and legal design. They challenge the assumption that moral disapproval automatically translates into support for legal sanctions. This suggests that aligning contract law with “public morality” is more complex than often assumed. Lawmakers and scholars should therefore distinguish carefully between what people find morally troubling and what they believe the law should regulate.
Conclusion
The article demonstrates that people’s judgments about lying in pre-contractual negotiations depend strongly on what the lie is about. While many lies are deemed immoral, only some are regarded as sufficiently serious to justify contract rescission. This divergence between moral and legal evaluations is systematic and robust across different legal systems, indicating common psychological patterns rather than simple reflections of existing law. Overall, the findings underscore the need for a nuanced understanding of normative expectations and caution against treating moral judgment as a direct proxy for preferred legal outcomes.
Read the full paper here: publicera.kb.se/ejels/article/view/51874
