Lawyers have broad discretion in deciding how honestly to behave when negotiating. We propose that lawyers’ choices about whether to disclose information to correct misimpressions by opposing counsel are guided by their moral character and their cognitive framing of negotiation. To investigate this possibility, we surveyed 215 lawyers from across the United States, examining the degree to which honest disclosure is associated with lawyers’ moral character and their tendency to frame negotiation in game-like terms—a construal of negotiation that we label game framing. We hypothesize that the more that lawyers view negotiation through a game frame—that is, the more they view negotiation as an adversarial context with arbitrary and artificial rules—the less honest they will be in situations in which honest disclosure is not mandated by professional rules of conduct. We further hypothesize that lawyers with higher levels of moral character will apply a game frame to negotiation to a lesser degree than will lawyers with lower levels of moral character, and that honesty when negotiating will be higher when lawyers have higher versus lower levels of moral character. Our study results support these hypotheses. This work suggests that focusing on game-like aspects of negotiation can induce a less moral and ethical mindset. To the extent that teaching law students to “think like a lawyer” encourages them to adopt a game frame of negotiation, we can expect such training to reduce the likelihood of honest disclosure.

中文翻译：

---

律师之间的诚实：道德品格、游戏框架和谈判中的诚实披露

律师在决定谈判时如何诚实行事时拥有广泛的自由裁量权。我们建议，律师关于是否披露信息以纠正对方律师的错误印象的选择取决于他们的道德品质和他们对谈判的认知框架。为了调查这种可能性，我们对来自美国各地的 215 名律师进行了调查，考察了诚实披露与律师道德品质的相关程度以及他们以类似游戏的方式构建谈判的倾向——我们将这种谈判解释称为游戏框架. 我们假设律师越是通过博弈框架来看待谈判——也就是说，他们越将谈判视为具有任意和人为规则的对抗性环境——在职业行为规则未强制要求诚实披露的情况下，他们就越不诚实。我们进一步假设，与道德品格水平较低的律师相比，具有较高道德品格的律师在谈判中应用博弈框架的程度较低，并且当律师的道德品格水平较高时，谈判时的诚实度会更高。 . 我们的研究结果支持这些假设。这项工作表明，专注于谈判中类似游戏的方面会导致道德和伦理心态的降低。在某种程度上，教法律学生“像律师一样思考”鼓励他们采用谈判的游戏框架，