People are dishonest about dishonesty: they teach absolute honesty as a rule while privately believing lying is sometimes acceptable.
Levine argues society consistently tells children, employees, and friends never to lie, but then lies routinely in practice and rarely admits out loud that this is sometimes the right thing to do. This gap between the stated rule and actual belief is the starting point for her research.
honesty-and-deception
People rate a communicator who claims absolute honesty and is later caught lying as more moral and trustworthy than one who openly admits lying is sometimes acceptable and tells the identical lie.
In studies led by former doctoral student Elizabeth Hubbert, participants judged two people who told the same lie: one who claimed lying is always wrong, one who said lying is sometimes wrong. The absolutist-turned-hypocrite was rated as more moral. This held across lab judgments of anonymous strangers and judgments of political candidates.
honesty-and-deception
People prefer moral hypocrites because they fear the 'slippery slope' of anyone who admits lying can be justified sometimes.
Levine explains the counterintuitive preference for hypocrites: acknowledging that lying is sometimes okay raises fear that a person will misjudge which situations warrant it and lie when they shouldn't. Claiming an absolute rule, even if occasionally broken, is seen as producing fewer errors.
honesty-and-deception
A real sample of US elected officials shows people intuitively grasp this incentive: claiming you never lie is rewarded even if you're later exposed as a hypocrite.
Levine's research found that officials and communicators implicitly understand that taking the absolute anti-lying stance earns more trust than admitting nuance, even though the nuanced position is closer to what most people actually believe.
honesty-and-deception
Early COVID mask guidance illustrates how paternalistic omission, not lying, can erode public trust just as much as an outright lie.
In March 2020 the CDC told the public masks were not needed while healthcare workers wore them, largely to preserve scarce N95 supply for at-risk workers; when the CDC reversed course weeks later, the inconsistency read as broken trust rather than sound risk management, because the real reasoning (a shortage) was withheld rather than stated.
trust-and-communication
Deception is judged acceptable specifically when truth would cause 'unnecessary harm': emotional pain without any offsetting learning or ability to act on it.
Levine's studies find people justify lying when the listener cannot act on the truth (due to limited cognitive capacity, an uncontrollable circumstance, or no time left to change), or when the listener is in a temporarily fragile state (grief, right before a wedding, in public). When truth enables growth or action, people say it should be told even if painful.
honesty-and-deception
About 75 percent of study participants would want to be lied to about the painful details of a loved one's death if the truth offered no possible action.
A study volunteer described wanting to be told a loved one 'died peacefully' even if the death involved suffering, reasoning that the truth would only cause anguish with nothing to be done about it; Levine notes participants actively consent to and desire this kind of protective lie.
honesty-and-deception
Physicians and patients agree that honesty is most ethical, but disagree sharply on the next-best option: doctors prefer silence, patients prefer false hope.
In Levine's studies on prognosis disclosure, physicians rate omission (saying nothing, waiting for more certainty) as more morally acceptable than commission (providing false hope), partly because it avoids guilt and liability. Patients rate the opposite: they would rather receive some hope than no information, making silence 'the worst of both worlds' from their perspective.
paternalism-vs-consent
The same person may want honesty or benevolence depending on the relationship and the moment, not as a fixed trait of that relationship.
Levine describes different people in her life serving different roles: colleagues she seeks out for brutal manuscript critique versus friends she seeks out for encouragement despite shared doubts. Neither preference is more moral; both are appreciated when the person fulfills the specific need being sought.
relationships-and-feedback
Whether someone can still change their situation is the key variable for whether feedback should be honest or protective.
Levine's personal rule with her husband: when trying on outfits at home, she wants honest feedback because she can still change clothes; once out in public and feeling insecure, she wants reassurance because the option to change is gone. She generalizes this as an implicit rule many couples should adopt explicitly.
relationships-and-feedback
A pro-social lie is distinguished from a paternalistic one by whether the speaker actually understands the listener's stated preferences for comfort versus honesty.
Levine's research finds that lies judged favorably come from communicators with real insight into what the listener wants; the practical implication is to ask directly what kind of feedback is wanted, as she does at the start of her own lab meetings, rather than assuming.
paternalism-vs-consent
Despite all the nuance in her own research, Levine's practical advice to her children reverted to 'honesty is the best policy' because the cost of getting a bad lie wrong outweighs the cost of an unnecessary truth.
Levine describes editing a children's book line about honesty to add caveats for her son, then reversing course for her daughter: she argues the risk of misjudging when a lie is acceptable, and eroding others' trust in your integrity in the process, is greater than the risk of occasionally telling an unwelcome truth.
honesty-and-deception
Books referenced
Dear Boy - Paris Rosenthal and Jason B. Rosenthal - Levine used to edit the book's line to her infant son from 'honesty is one thing that will never lead you down the wrong road' to 'usually not,' reflecting her research-driven ambivalence about teaching absolute honesty; she later reversed course and reads it unedited to her children.
Techniques and frameworks
Psychology of unnecessary harm - Levine's framework for when people judge lying as acceptable: deception is seen as ethical when the truth would cause emotional harm without enabling long-term learning or growth (necessary harm justifies truth-telling; unnecessary harm justifies a lie).
Honesty vs. omission vs. commission - A three-way distinction Levine uses in her research with physicians and patients: honesty (full disclosure including uncertainty), omission (withholding information, staying silent), and commission (actively lying, e.g. providing false hope about a prognosis).
Asking about feedback preferences - A practice Levine uses in her own lab meetings: asking presenters upfront what kind of feedback is useful and what they can and cannot change, to calibrate honesty versus support before giving comments.
Summary
This episode is Shankar Vedantam's extended one-on-one conversation with University of Chicago psychologist Emma Levine, framed as a companion piece to an earlier Hidden Brain episode of the same title that laid out the specific scenarios in which people judge lying to be acceptable. Levine opens with a personal story: a routine 40-week prenatal ultrasound where the technician went silent after spotting a problem with her son's kidneys, unable or unwilling to say anything until the doctor arrived. She uses the moment to introduce her central finding: people often believe staying silent is the safest compromise between telling a scary truth and telling a comforting lie, but silence is usually the worst option for the listener, whose mind fills the gap with worse possibilities than the truth would have.
From there, Levine develops her core argument that society is "dishonest about dishonesty": everyone is taught to always tell the truth, but everyone also lies routinely and privately believes some lying is justified, without ever saying so out loud. Her research shows this gap has a perverse effect on how we judge each other. In studies with her former doctoral student Elizabeth Hubbert, participants consistently rated a communicator who claims lying is always wrong, and is later caught lying, as more moral and trustworthy than a communicator who openly admits lying is sometimes acceptable and tells the exact same lie. People prefer the hypocrite because admitting nuance raises fear of a slippery slope, that a person willing to justify any lie might misjudge when it's warranted. Levine ties this to real-world costs: early COVID mask guidance, where officials withheld the real reason (a supply shortage) behind a false blanket statement that masks weren't needed, eroded long-term public trust once the guidance reversed, even though the underlying reasoning was defensible.
The heart of the episode is Levine's framework for when lying is judged ethical: the "psychology of unnecessary harm." Truth-telling is expected when the truth enables learning or action; lying becomes more acceptable when the truth would cause emotional pain with no offsetting benefit, for instance when the listener lacks the capacity or time to act on it, or is in a temporarily fragile state such as grief or right before a wedding. She cites a study in which roughly three-quarters of participants said they would want to be told a loved one "died peacefully" even amid real suffering, because the truth would only cause anguish they couldn't act on. This extends into her newer research with physicians and patients: both groups rate full honesty as most ethical, but they diverge on the next-best option. Physicians prefer omission (staying silent) over false hope, largely to avoid guilt and liability; patients prefer false hope over silence, making pure omission "the worst of both worlds" from the patient's side.
Levine closes on practical takeaways drawn from her own life: a personal rule with her husband about when she wants honest feedback on an outfit (only while she can still change it) versus reassurance (once she's out and stuck with the choice), and a habit of opening her own lab meetings by asking presenters what kind of feedback is actually useful to them. The throughline is that pro-social lies are judged favorably only when the speaker has real insight into what the listener wants, which usually means asking rather than assuming. Despite years of research complicating the picture, Levine says her advice to her own children has come full circle back to "honesty is the best policy": she once softened a children's book line about honesty for her son, then reversed the edit for her daughter, concluding that the risk of misjudging a lie and eroding someone's trust in your integrity outweighs the risk of occasionally telling an unwelcome truth.
Notable Quotes
"It's better to say nothing than to tell a lie, right? Even a benevolent one. That spares you from guilt... But what's interesting is it doesn't match patient preferences... No information is the worst of both worlds." - Emma Levine
"Participants believe that person A, the person who says lying is always wrong, but then is exposed as a hypocrite, is actually more moral and they're more willing to trust them." - Emma Levine
"The risk of having a policy of honesty is that you sometimes tell the truth when you shouldn't, that can sometimes be a mistake, but it's better to make that mistake than the wrong lie." - Emma Levine