UC San Diego

Abstract Is truth believed to be more persuasive than falsehood? This paper explores this question using a series of experiments. First, a survey experiment reveals that participants consistently believe that the persuasive power of truthful messages exceeds that of lies. Second, two laboratory experiments, in which senders record truthful and false video messages about news events, show that senders mistakenly believe that their truthful messages will be more believable. Even when incentivised to lie, most senders choose to tell the truth—if tasked with persuading receivers. If not, however, most senders follow the incentives and lie.