Researches proved that people are more prone to lying in emails than handwritten correspondence. In tests carried out by business professors at Rutgers, Lehigh and DePaul universities in the US universities, 48 students were given $89 (£50) and was told to share it equally with some stranger who was unaware of the total amount of money.

A total of 92% of the students resorted to lying when it was done through email, while the number decreased significantly and only 64% of them lied when asked to accomplish the task through hand written letters. The details of the study disclosed that Emailers handed an average of $29 and kept $60 for themselves whereas the writers of manually written letters gave up $34 and kept $55 for themselves.

The co-author of the study Terri Kurtzberg, an associate professor at Rutgers Business School in New Jersey concluded that “People seem to feel more justified in acting in self-serving ways when typing as opposed to writing.”

Liuba Belkin, an assistant professor at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania pointed out, “There is a growing concern in the workplace over email communications, and it comes down to trust. You’re not afforded the luxury of seeing non-verbal and behavioural cues over email, and in an organisational context that leaves a lot of room for misinterpretation and - as we saw in our study - intentional deception.” The paper, Being Honest Online, has been prepared for publication at the annual meeting of the Academy of Management in California.