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Personality Traits Associated with Various Forms of Lying

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Personality Traits Associated with Various
Forms of Lying

Christian L. Hart, Rasheonia Lemon,

Drew A. Curtis & James D. Griffith

Psychological Studies

ISSN 0033-2968

Psychol Stud
DOI 10.1007/s12646-020-00563-x

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 Author's personal copy
Psychol Stud
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12646-020-00563-x
RESEARCH IN PROGRESS
Personality Traits Associated with Various Forms of Lying
Christian L. Hart1 • Rasheonia Lemon1 • Drew A. Curtis2 • James D. Griffith3
Received: 14 May 2019 / Accepted: 1 September 2019
Ó National Academy of Psychology (NAOP) India 2020
Abstract In this study, we explored the relationship
between personality traits and the tendency to lie. Specif-
ically, we examined the correlation between various forms
of lying and the personality factors of self-esteem, open-
ness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neu-
roticism. We developed a lie scale that assessed the
tendency to tell three types of lies: altruistic, self-serving,
and vindictive. A total of 352 participants completed the lie
scale, the Ten-Item Personality Inventory, and the Rosen-
berg Self-Esteem Scale. Self-esteem, openness, conscien-
tiousness, extraversion, and agreeableness were negatively
correlated with lying, while neuroticism was positively
correlated with lying. Multiple regression analyses were
used to determine the unique set of personality predictors
for each type of lie.
Keywords Deception
Lie
Personality
Big five

Self-esteem
Introduction
Lying and other forms of deception are pervasive social
behaviors that can inflict great harm but are also widely
accepted and encouraged as instruments of social harmony
& Christian L. Hart
chart2@twu.edu
1
Department of Psychology and Philosophy, Texas Woman’s
University, Denton, TX, USA
2
Department of Psychology and Sociology, Angelo State
University, San Angelo, TX, USA
3
Department of Psychology, Shippensburg University,
Shippensburg, PA, USA
(Bok, 1999; Campbell, 2001; Vrij, 2008). A lie can be
viewed generally as a misleading manipulation of the truth,
but it appears in many forms, such as fabrication, exag-
geration, concealment, and omission (Bok, 1999; Camp-
bell, 2001; Ekman, 1997; Masip, Garrido, & Herrero, 2004;
Vrij, 2008). All lies are marked by a decision to deceive a
receiver, all while attempting to conceal the deception
(Bond & DePaulo, 2006; Ekman, 1988, 1997; Mahon,
2008; Masip, Garrido, & Herrero, 2004). Vrij (2008, p. 15)
offered a more precise definition of a lie that is widely used
in the deception literature. He defined a lie as ‘‘a successful
or unsuccessful attempt, without forewarning, to create in
another a belief which the communicator considers to be
untrue.’’
People tell lies for many reasons. Altruistic lies are told
to benefit others; these lies often appear as the little white
lies people tell to spare another’s feelings by avoiding
awkward or painful truths (e.g., ‘‘Yes, I do like your new
haircut.’’; Hart, Curtis, Williams, Hathaway, & Griffith,
2014; Levine & Schweitzer, 2015). Antisocial or vindictive
lies are told with the intent to do harm to others (Guthrie &
Kunkel, 2013). For example, a person may spread false
rumors or attempt to undercut a competitor with false-
hoods. Self-serving lies are those told to gain advantage,
avoid punishment, or to promote one’s status (Bok, 1999;
DePaulo, Kashy, Kirkendol, Wyer, & Epstein, 1996;
Ekman, 1997). These categories of lies are not exhaustive
or mutually exclusive, and lies can certainly be parsed into
categories other than these.
Assessing the prevalence and variability of lying in
society is a challenging task, as objective detection of
veracity is often impossible, and self-reports of mendacity
can be paradoxically tainted by deception. DePaulo, Kashy,
Kirkendol, Wyer, and Epstein (1996) conducted studies of
lying with college students and community members in
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which participants documented the lies they told in diaries.
Their results indicated that, on average, people lie a couple
of times per day. They found that college students used
deception in one out of every three social interactions.
While these researchers reported that, on average, people
lie daily, subsequent research and reanalysis of the data
suggests considerable interpersonal variability in deception
and a strong positive skew in the distribution, with most
people lying very little and a few telling many lies
(DePaulo, Kashy, Kirkendol, Wyer, & Epstein, 1996;
Serota & Levine, 2014; Serota, Levine, & Boster, 2009).
There is compelling evidence that personality traits can
be used to explain individual differences in patterns of
lying. Researchers have found that the Dark Triad traits of
Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy are asso-
ciated with all manner of nefarious activities, including
scholastic cheating, sexual infidelity, interpersonal
aggression, and criminality (Muris, Merckelbach, Otgaar,
& Meijer, 2017; Williams, Nathanson, & Paulhus, 2010;
Wright, Morgan, Almeida, Almosaed, Moghrabi, &
Bashatah, 2017). It perhaps comes as no surprise, then, that
Dark Triad traits are also associated with lying (Azizli,
Atkinson, Baughman, Chin, Vernon, Harris, & Veselka,
2016; Jonason, Lyons, Baughman, & Vernon, 2014).
In addition to the Dark Triad traits, other personality
traits have been associated with deceptive tendencies. Trait
compassion is associated with lying, although it is specif-
ically tied to more altruistic or prosocial forms of lying
(Lupoli, Jampol, & Oveis, 2017). Both low self-esteem and
need for approval are associated with cheating and dis-
honesty (Lobel & Levanon, 1988; Ward 1986). Relatedly,
Kashy and DePaulo (1996) found that people who score
higher in self-consciousness and impression management
lie more frequently. Anxious personality, anxious attach-
ment style, and avoidant attachment style are also associ-
ated with higher rates of lying (Cole, 2001).
Researchers have also examined how broad personal-
ity structure such as the Five-Factor Model (FFM) of
personality (Costa & McCrae, 1992) is related to
deceptive behaviors (Buss, 1992). There is no solid
evidence that openness is associated with lying. A recent
study found no significant correlation between openness
and validated measures of honesty (Gaughan, Miller, &
Lynam, 2012), and a review of the literature and a recent
meta-analysis found, at best, equivocal support for any
relationship between openness and academic dishonesty
(Giluk, & Postlethwaite, 2015). On the other hand, a
number of studies have found that people higher in
extraversion are more likely to lie (Conrads, Irlenbusch,
Rilke, & Walkowitz, 2013; Gylfason, Halldorsson, &
Kristinsson, 2016; Kashy & DePaulo, 1996). Lower
levels of agreeableness and conscientiousness consis-
tently predict lying, criminal offending, and academic
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cheating (Horn & Brannick, 2004; Wiebe, 2004; Wil-
liams, Nathanson, and Paulhus, 2010). Higher levels of
neuroticism are associated with academic dishonesty and
deceptive self-presentation (Eshet, Grinautski, Peled,
Barczyk, 2014; Jackson & Francis, 1999; Michikyan,
Subrahmanyam, & Dennis, 2014).
The relationship between dishonesty and personality
has been explored extensively and much has been dis-
covered; however, a complete understanding of the
relationship between lying and personality is still
incomplete. Studies have previously explored some ele-
ments of the relationship between the FFM of person-
ality, self-esteem, and various forms of dishonesty and
deception, but more analysis is needed to develop a more
complete picture of those relationships. The current study
explored the relationships between self-esteem, the FFM
personality traits, and a particular type of deception—
lying. Further, we wanted to explore whether particular
personality traits were associated with telling some types
of lies more than others. Our hypothesis was that
extraversion and neuroticism would be positively corre-
lated with lying. We also expected that self-esteem,
agreeableness, and conscientiousness would be negatively
correlated with lying. Given the meager evidence for a
relationship between openness and dishonesty, we had no
hypothesis for a relationship between those variables.
Additionally, we expected that each type of lie would
have a unique pattern of personality trait predictors.
Method
Participants
In total, 352 participants volunteered for this study; 123
were men, 221 were women, and 8 individuals identified
as another gender identity. Participants were a conve-
nience sample from the general population recruited by
students in an undergraduate psychology class. The
participants were primarily acquaintances recruited via
email and social media. Presumably, many of the par-
ticipants were acquainted with the students who recruited
them. The recruiters were not involved in any other
phase of the study and did not have access to the par-
ticipants’ responses. We did not collect any data on the
participant recruitment response rate. The participants
ranged between 18 and 60 years old with a mean of
25.52 (SD 7.79). Totally, 273 participants self-identified
as Caucasian, 22 as African-American, 21 as Latin
American, 11 as Asian-American, 1 as Native American,
1 as Pacific Islander, and 23 participants identified as
other. No incentives were offered, and all participants
gave their informed consent.
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Materials and Procedure
All participants completed an online survey. After com-
pleting an informed consent and demographics questions,
participants completed several measures of personality and
lying. The first measure was the Ten-Item Personality
Inventory (TIPI; Gosling, Rentfrow, & Swann, 2003). The
TIPI is a short, reliable, and validated measure of the Five-
Factor personality domains. Each item on the TIPI is
scored on a scale ranging from 1 (disagree strongly) to 7
(agree strongly). We combined the two questions for each
personality factor, yielding a score between 2 and 14 for
each factor.
Participants then completed the 10-item Rosenberg self-
esteem scale (RSES; Rosenberg, 1965). This is a widely
used, reliable, and valid measure of self-esteem. Each item
on the RSES is scored on a 0 (strongly disagree) to 3
(strongly agree) scale, yielding a total score between 0 and
30.
Lastly, participants completed a lie scale that we
developed. This measure consisted of 16 statements about
one’s lying behaviors that were rated on a seven-point scale
ranging from ‘‘Strongly Disagree’’ to ‘‘Strongly Agree.’’ A
variety of different types of lies were measured. Our
development and selection of items was guided by student
focus groups, preliminary qualitative analyses of self-re-
ported lies from two unpublished studies on deception, and
reviews of the existing literature (Levine et al. 2016; Vrij,
2008; see Table 1 for the 16-item lie scale).
We conducted an exploratory factor analysis (EFA)
according to the recommendations of Costello and Osborne
(2005). We used the scree test method for factor retention
(i.e., factors that occurred on the scree plot prior to the
point of inflection were retained; see Fig. 1). Those factors
also were the only ones with eigenvalues greater than one.
In order to minimize cross-loadings, we utilized a varimax
rotation.
The scree test and eigenvalues suggested a three-fac-
tor solution for the lie items. The three factors exhibited
eigenvalues of 6.37, 2.93, and 1.60. None of the
remaining factors accounted for more than 6% of the
variability (i.e., those at and beyond the point of
inflection). An analysis of the varimax rotated factor
loadings (see Table 1) suggested that factor 1 was
indicative of self-serving lies such as avoiding conse-
quences of bad behavior and self-promotion. Factor 2
was indicative of altruistic or benevolent lies told in
order to benefit another. Factor 3 consisted of vindictive

Table 1 Varimax rotated factor loadings for the LiES scale

Items Loadings
1 2 3

I lie in order to avoid shame .81 .22 .06

If I am suspected of doing something wrong, I lie to hide my wrongdoing .80 .14 .17
I tell the truth even if it brings my wrongdoings to light* .78 .13 .13
To avoid embarrassment, I lie .76 .33 .01
I lie to others in order to conceal my misdeeds .72 .24 .16
I lie to avoid disapproval from others .72 .42 .04
I lie in order to make myself seem better than I actually am .71 .29 .09
I am truthful when confronted about my social transgressions* .67 .02 .04
I lie in order to make people feel better .21 .86 .05
I tell white lies in order to make people feel better .19 .84 .01
I lie to relieve others’ burdens .23 .77 .10
I do not tell lies in order to spare another’s feelings* .26 .67 .01
I lie in order to cause harm to others .15 .01 .89
I tell lies in order to hurt, annoy, or upset others .18 .05 .82
I lie for revenge .21 .04 .81
I do not lie in order to intentionally harm people* .09 .05 .61
Eigenvalue 6.37 2.39 1.60
% of Variance 39.81 14.96 10.00
Cronbach’s a .91 .84 .76
*Reverse coded
Bold values indicate factor loadings above .60

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Psychol Stud

Fig. 1 Scree plot for the lie scale

lies told in order to harm another person. All items had
factor loadings [ .60 and cross-loadings \ .45.
Cronbach’s alphas for the three categories of lie ques-
tions were .91 (self-serving), .84 (altruistic), and .76 (vin-
dictive). For each lie type, we calculated an average scored
based on responses to the questions for that type of lie.
Thus, for each type of lie, scores ranged from 1 to 7. The
responses for Factor 3 (vindictive) were positively skewed
(2.54), so we completed a logarithmic transformation,
reducing the skew to an acceptable level (1.43). All sub-
sequent correlation and regression analyses were conducted
on this transformed variable.

Table 2 Descriptive statistics and correlations for personality measures

M SD 1 2 3 4 5

1. Self-esteem 18.40 6.43

2. Openness 10.60 2.50 .19***
3. Conscientiousness 9.34 3.04 .49*** .11*
4. Extraversion 7.39 3.42 .33*** .31*** .07
5. Agreeableness 9.44 2.84 .18*** .18*** .19*** .12*
6. Neuroticism 7.50 3.34 - .54*** - .15** - .28*** - .11* - .25***
*p \ .05
**p \ .01
***p \ .001

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Table 3 Descriptive statistics and correlations for different types of lies

M SD 1 2

1. Self-serving 3.32 1.38

2. Altruistic 4.26 1.38 .54***
3. Vindictive 1.56 1.00 .24*** .12*
*p \ .05
***p \ .001

Table 4 Standard multiple regression analyses for lying and correlation analyses
Lie type and predictors R R2 Adj. R2 F B b sr2 r

Self-serving .48 .23 .22 17.01***

Self-esteem - .08 - .35*** .07 - .44***
Openness - .05 - .09 .01 - .18***
Conscientiousness - .06 - .14 .00 - .31***
Extraversion .00 .01 .00 - .17**
Agreeableness .04 .09 .01 - .19***
Neuroticism .00 .00 .00 .26***
Altruistic .23 .06 .14 3.32**
Self-esteem - .05 - .24*** .03 - .21***
Openness - .03 - .06 .00 - .08
Conscientiousness - .02 - .04 .00 - .12*
Extraversion .02 .05 .00 - .04
Agreeableness .02 - .05 .00 - .01
Neuroticism - .02 - .05 .00 .08
Vindictive .33 .11 .09 6.86***
Self-esteem - .01 - .09 .00 - .05
Openness - .01 - .02 .00 - .05
Conscientiousness - .01 - .02 .00 - .08
Extraversion .03 .10 .01 .04
Agreeableness - .11 - .32*** .09 - .30***
Neuroticism - .04 - .13* .01 - .01
*p \ .05
**p \ .01
***p \ .001

Results conscientiousness. The means, standard deviations, and

Following the procedures of McLeod and Genereux
(2008), we computed descriptive statistics, bivariate cor-
relations, and multiple regression analyses for the person-
ality measures and the lying measures. The means,
standard deviations, and bivariate correlations for the per-
sonality measures are presented in Table 2. There were
significant small to moderate correlations between all the
personality measures except between extraversion and
bivariate correlations for the three types of lies are pre-
sented in Table 3. There were significant small to moderate
correlations between each of the lie types.
Using the RSES and the five factors of the TIPI as
predictor variables, we computed three standard multiple
regression analyses to predict the endorsement of each of
the three types of lies independently. The results of the
regression analyses are presented in Table 4. All regression
analyses were significant at p \ .01. The results of the

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regression analyses revealed that for self-serving lies and
altruistic lies, self-esteem was the only significant predictor
variable. The regression analysis for vindictive lies indi-
cated that agreeableness and neuroticism were the only
significant predictor variables. Partially supporting our
hypothesis that each lie type would have a unique set of
predictors, we found that the predictors for vindictive lies
were distinct, but the predictors for self-serving and
altruistic lies were similar. Contrary to our hypotheses,
extraversion was negatively correlated with self-serving
lies and was not significantly correlated with altruistic and
vindictive lies. Partially supporting our hypotheses,
agreeableness, conscientiousness, and self-esteem were
each negatively correlated with some types of lies, but not
all; agreeableness was not correlated with altruistic lies,
and consciousness and self-esteem were not correlated with
vindictive lies. In partial support of our hypotheses, neu-
roticism was positively correlated with self-serving lies,
but was not significantly correlated with the other two
types of lies. We also provided bivariate correlations
between each personality variable and each type of lie (see
Table 4).
Discussion
The accumulated evidence on deception suggests that lying
is a common occurrence in most facets of life (Bok, 1999;
Haselton, Buss, Oubaid, & Angleitner, 2005; Vrij, 2008).
On an encouraging note, we found that the types of lies
people reported telling most often were altruistic lies, and
the ones they told very rarely were the vindictive lies. In
this study, we demonstrated that certain personality traits
are systematically associated with the tendency to tell
specific types of lies. Each of the regression formulas
predicting the three types of lies was significant, with
R values ranging from .23 to .48. We found broad support
for our hypothesis that agreeableness, conscientiousness,
and self-esteem would be negatively correlated with the
tendency to lie. This pattern of results was consistent with
previous studies relating personality to deception (Horn &
Brannick, 2004; Lobel & Levanon, 1988; Ward 1986;
Wiebe, 2004; Williams, Nathanson, & Paulhus, 2010).
Contrary to our hypotheses, extraversion was negatively
correlated with self-serving lies and was not significantly
correlated with altruistic and antisocial lies. This is at odds
with research cited earlier in this paper. These unexpected
findings could be due to our measure of lying being con-
siderably different than the measures of deception used in
previous research. For instance, Conrads, Irlenbusch,
Rilke, and Walkowitz, (2013) used a deception task in
which teams of individuals were in a competitive game
attempting to win financial rewards and Gylfason,
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Psychol Stud
Halldorsson, and Kristinsson (2016) also used a deception
and trust game task in which participants were competing
with each other. In contrast to these contrived scenarios,
our participants were simply asked to report about their
tendency to lies in everyday situations.
One interesting pattern in our results was that no single
personality trait correlated with every type of lie. This
suggests that the relationship between personality and
deceptive tendencies may be nuanced. These findings
certainly suggest that caution should be used when using
personality measures as predictors of lying, as each trait
may only predict certain categories of lies. It was also
noteworthy that all three of the lie categories were corre-
lated with each other, suggesting that people who tell one
type of lie tend to tell the others.
Another curious finding in the results was how few
significant personality predictors there were in each
regression model. It might be that tendency or motivations
to tell lies hinge on a relatively simple array of underlying
psychological process or incentives. Perhaps, future
investigations should focus on a search for the broad psy-
chological underpinnings of deceptive tendencies.
Consistent with previous research, self-esteem was
negatively correlated with self-serving and altruistic lies
but not with vindictive lies (Lobel & Levanon, 1988; Ward
1986). Further, it was the only significant predictor in the
regression models for self-serving and altruistic lies. Per-
haps, high self-esteem serves as a buffer against the
internal processes or social influence that often leads one to
lie, or, conversely, it may be that those with low self-
esteem use lying as a way of protecting themselves from
social assaults on their already fragile characters.
While the findings from this study are useful in under-
standing who tells which types of lies, some limitations of
our methodology should be considered when interpreting
them. Though we used one categorization system for lies,
forms or types of deception can be parsed and organized in
many ways, so using a different set of lie categories would
likely yield a different set of results. As mentioned previ-
ously, when measuring lying using a self-report instrument,
one is in the difficult position of trusting that liars will be
honest about their lying—a somewhat dubious proposition.
Thus, the validity of such measures will always be a point
of concern. Another limitation is that we used a conve-
nience sample recruited via email and social media by
college students; thus, the sample is likely not representa-
tive of the general population. An additional limitation is
that we only measured a handful of very broad personality
traits. If future research projects examine a more elaborate
set of traits, our understanding of the personality predictors
of lying might change substantially.
The results of this study did confirm our broad
hypotheses that there are specific personality traits that
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predict lying, and the precise combination of personality
predictors depends on the specific type of lie one is
considering. These findings are congruent with those of
other researchers (McLeod & Genereux, 2008). While
McLeod and Genereux argued that lying should not be
viewed as a singular behavior, but as a multifaceted set
of behaviors with a complex array of underlying psy-
chological mechanisms, our results suggest that the
number of personality predictors may actually be few in
number. Lies occur within a complex cluster of social,
behavioral, and situational contexts that ought to be
systematically considered. If future research continues to
conceptualize the intricate set of motivations for lying
and search for the fundamental personality traits associ-
ated with each of those unique motivations, we will
move toward a more precise, accurate, and complete
understanding of interpersonal deception and those
mechanisms that drive it.
Author Contributions CLH and RL conceived and designed the
study. CLH, RL, and DAC collected the data. CLH and JDG analyzed
and interpreted the data. CLH, DAC, and RL drafted the manuscript.
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