  The persistence of lying by some consumers in their online posts of
experiences with businesses is problematic, and taints the global pool of
information that is used for decision making by people that assume they are
true accounts of experiences. This study is based on data from my dissertation
about fake online Google reviews of restaurants (Berry, 2024), and leverages an
instrument that quantifies the trust of people. The findings are based on a
sample of n=351, and provide a general proxy for lying in online reviews, and
sketch out the characteristics of a typical person that has the propensity to
be untruthful. A predictive model of posting untrue online reviews is
constructed. The findings have wider implications for the study and monitoring
of deceptive behavior, including the propagation of misinformation, and a means
of quantifying the potential for antisocial behavior as measured by the trust
of people instrument in Berry (2024). Directions for future research and
limitations are also discussed.
