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The Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia just wrapped up a study with 170 students. They set up a mock stock market, where one group was set up as stock brokers, and others as stock buyers. The brokers were offered a cash incentive to sell their stock, even though some were informed that the stock would bomb. The buyers were informed that their stock would lose half its value after they bought it, but how did the brokers sell it? The liars were 95% more likely to use text message than video, 31% more than face-to-face, and 18% more than audio call.
It’s not entirely surprising to see text messaging being a prime choice to conduct nefarious deception, but I think the clearer message from the study here is that video chat actually has a fair bit of value for keeping people honest. There are some obvious implications there for businesses, but it’s easy to imagine video chat holding a lot of potential for tech support; by the same token, I think customers would have a much harder time yelling at someone on the other end if they had to look them in the eyes.
If you’d like to see the full results of the study, it’ll be going into the Journal of Business Ethics in March.
About The Author
Simon Sage
Simon Sage’s education largely surrounded writing, technology and online community, leading him to begin his blogging career at www.BlackBerryCool.com and to quickly discover a vibrant and active community surrounding BlackBerry and mobile technology. In exploring RIM’s platform, he has learned what enterprises are looking for in mobility as well as what makes the innocuous BlackBerry so appealing to them. Recently Simon’s been covering RIM’s gradual move into an already-crowded consumer market, and the impact of burgeoning challengers, such as the iPhone, as well as long-time leaders, like Nokia, on BlackBerry’s advancement. With plenty of content under his belt, Simon will be branching off a bit to see what other smartphone manufacturers are working on while still using BlackBerry as a barometer. At IntoMobile, you can count on his posts being even-handed, well-informed and thought-out.
