Playing it down
The hidden game of income understating
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21355419 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Xing Shu (0009-0003-7001-5654, Southwest University), Jianmin Zeng (0000-0003-0440-6684, Southwest University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Pages | 1-17 |
| Publication date | 2026-03-05 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Journal of Social Psychology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0022-4545 • E-ISSN: 1940-1183 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/00224545.2026.2637773 |
| PMID | 41787242 |
| OpenAlex | W7134058125 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 42 |
Income is a sensitive yet common topic in conversations. When asked about their income in daily scenarios, do people tend to understate it, overstate it, or state the truth? Across five main experiments and two supplementary studies (N = 939), we consistently observed an income understatement effect across 15 conversational contexts involving 11 types of interpersonal relationships. The effect emerged both when participants responded to hypothetical income scenarios (Study 1 and Supplementary Studies 1–2) and when they discussed their actual self-reported income (Study 2). Guided by the theory of Sensitivity about Being the Target of a Threatening Upward Comparison (STTUC), we identified concerns about others’ envy and potential borrowing requests as key psychological mechanisms underlying this phenomenon (Studies 3–4), particularly under downward social comparison conditions (Study 5)
Interpersonal communication · Interpersonal interaction · Key (lock) · Low income · Phenomenon · Social comparison theory · Emotions and Moral Behavior · Psychology of Social Influence · Social and Intergroup Psychology
The Dishonesty of Honest People
G*Power 3
Give Me a Straight Answer
Emotion Appraisals and Coping with Secrets
Secrecy in Everyday Life
Optimal Distinctiveness Theory
Are Household Surveys Like Tax Forms? Evidence from Income Underreporting of the Self-Employed
Hedonic recall bias. Why you should not ask people how much they earn
Strategies for becoming a more desirable mate
To Lend or Not to Lend to Friends and Kin
When people want what others have
Leveling up and down
Questions and question asking in verbal discourse
Another Plea for Caution When Using Survey Income Data From the Far-Left Tail
I’m just being honest.” When and why honesty enables help versus harm
The economic and interpersonal consequences of deflecting direct questions
Culture and the self
A Theory of Social Comparison Processes
The experience of secrecy
Artful paltering
Comprehending envy
Sensitive questions in surveys
For better or worse
The perils of outperformance
Cheating Ourselves
| Highly cited | No |
|---|