STUDY: Honesty Isn’t Best Policy? Why You’re Better Off Being ‘Kind Liar’…

Study explains the psychology behind our feedback double standard

When a meal doesn’t turn out well, the feedback the chef receives often depends less on the quality of the dish and more on who’s doing the tasting. If the cook handles criticism well, most people will offer honest feedback. But if the cook is someone who takes criticism hard and might give up entirely after hearing the truth, people suddenly prefer the feedback provider who will lie and say it was delicious.

This split in preferences reveals a fascinating double standard in how people think about honesty. Research published in the British Journal of Social Psychology shows that a clear majority of people want truthful feedback for themselves. But when choosing a feedback provider for someone who struggles with criticism, they’re far more likely to select someone who will sugarcoat reality.

Prosocial liars (people who give positive feedback regardless of reality) who provided overly positive feedback were judged as more moral than honest feedback providers, the researchers found. In other words, the kind liar often comes across as the better person.

When Being Honest Makes Someone Look Less Moral

The study involved 886 American adults who read scenarios about feedback on poorly prepared dishes. Two fictional cooks made the meals: Kate, who handles criticism well and uses it to improve, and Amy, who takes negative feedback personally and finds it crushing.

Participants evaluated four types of feedback providers. One always gave positive feedback to everyone. One always told the truth to everyone. The third told the truth to resilient Kate but lied to protect vulnerable Amy. The fourth did the opposite, lying to Kate but being harsh with Amy.

The prosocial liar scored highest on moral character ratings. Participants saw this person as empathetic and caring, someone trying to spare others from unnecessary pain.

Notable findings emerged from the third type: the strategic feedback provider who switched between honesty and flattery depending on who could handle it. Common sense might suggest people would view this inconsistency as wishy-washy or unreliable. Instead, participants judged these adaptive providers as just as moral, and sometimes even more moral, than the consistently honest ones.

This finding challenges conventional wisdom. People don’t actually penalize socially appropriate inconsistency if that inconsistency serves a kind purpose. A manager who’s tough on confident employees but gentle with anxious ones isn’t seen as unpredictable. They’re seen as attuned to individual needs.

The Choice People Make for Others vs. Themselves

The second part of the study asked people to actually choose a feedback provider. Some chose for themselves. Others chose for an unspecified person. A third group chose for someone explicitly described as taking negative feedback very personally and struggling with failure.

When picking for themselves, 59% wanted the honest feedback provider. But when selecting for the vulnerable person, that number dropped to 52%. The prosocial liar saw a modest increase, from 17% (for themselves) to 22% (for the vulnerable person).

The strategic provider who adapted their approach saw the most dramatic shift. About 14% of people chose this provider for themselves, but that dropped to just 9% when selecting for an unspecified other person. However, when the recipient was explicitly described as vulnerable, the preference for this adaptive provider more than doubled to 19%.

The observed pattern here suggests people want accuracy for themselves but compassion for others, especially when those others are fragile. The adaptive approach becomes particularly appealing when vulnerability is known and explicit.

Why the difference? The researchers suggest people trust their own ability to handle tough feedback and recognize its value for improvement. They want the information, even if it stings. But when someone else is on the receiving end, particularly someone known to be struggling, the priority shifts to protecting feelings over delivering accurate data.

There’s also the harm factor. Brutal honesty delivered to someone who can’t process it well might not lead to improvement at all. It might just cause damage. In that case, a gentle lie could actually be more effective than a harsh truth.

The One Strategy That Fails

Interestingly, the feedback style that bombed across every measure was the fourth type: the person who lied to confident Kate but told harsh truths to vulnerable Amy. Participants rated this “inadequate” approach as the least moral and most harmful.

This reveals something important. People aren’t bothered by inconsistency itself. They’re bothered by inconsistency that makes no social sense, that causes unnecessary harm by applying the wrong strategy to the wrong person.

Someone who can handle honesty but gets platitudes feels patronized. Someone who needs gentle encouragement but gets harsh criticism feels crushed. Both situations violate unspoken social rules about matching the approach to the person.

What Drives Moral Judgments

When the researchers dug into what predicted moral character ratings, two factors stood out: trustworthiness and whether the behavior seemed expected or appropriate for the situation.

The always-honest provider scored highest on trustworthiness, as expected. But on the question of whether their behavior was expected or appropriate, both the honest provider and the adaptive provider scored similarly well. Telling the truth to everyone is socially acceptable. So is adjusting honesty based on someone’s vulnerability.

What wasn’t expected or appropriate? Always lying to everyone (though participants still viewed this as moral, they recognized it as unusual). And especially the backwards approach of coddling the strong while being harsh with the weak.

This suggests people apply a kind of proportionality principle: treat people according to their individual needs and circumstances. That can mean treating everyone equally with honesty. But it can also mean calibrating the approach, giving truth to those who can use it and gentleness to those who need protection.

The Honesty Paradox

The research reveals something more sophisticated than “honesty is the best policy.” People hold multiple values simultaneously: they want accuracy, predictability, empathy, and to avoid causing harm. Which value wins depends on the context and who’s involved.

For themselves, truth wins. People are confident they can handle it, or they’re willing to risk the discomfort for the benefit of accurate information. For vulnerable others, kindness edges ahead. Protection matters more than information, at least in lower-stakes situations like feedback on cooking.

The study didn’t examine higher-stakes scenarios like workplace performance reviews or medical diagnoses, where accuracy might matter more than feelings regardless of vulnerability. And it measured what people say they’d choose, not what they’d actually do when faced with a real situation.

But the findings do explain something many people have experienced: the discomfort of watching someone be “honest” with a person who clearly can’t handle it in that moment. The instinct says that person should read the room, and adjust their approach. Turns out, moral judgments agree.

Being rigid about always telling the truth, regardless of who’s listening or whether they can process it, isn’t necessarily always the moral high ground. Sometimes, in low-stakes moments, the more ethical choice is knowing when to hold back, when to soften, when to let someone preserve their confidence even if it means they don’t get the full picture right away.

The truth can wait. People’s feelings, and their willingness to keep trying, sometimes can’t.

Disclaimer: This article discusses psychological research findings and is intended for informational purposes only. It does not constitute professional advice regarding interpersonal communication, workplace feedback, or personal relationships. Individual circumstances vary, and readers should use their judgment when applying these insights to real-world situations.