IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v231y2023ics0165176523002823.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Experimental evidence on the transmission of honesty and dishonesty: A stairway to heaven and a highway to hell

Author

Listed:
  • Colzani, Paola
  • Michailidou, Georgia
  • Santos-Pinto, Luis

Abstract

Various theories of social behavior propose that individuals condition actions that involve a moral value by following each other’s behavior. The theoretical and experimental instruments employed to evaluate this conditioning often focus only on the diffusion of actions with negative moral value (e.g., dishonesty, norm violation, tax evasion). In this paper, we develop and execute a laboratory experiment to study the diffusion of actions with both, positive and negative moral values. We use a lying paradigm and introduce a novel methodology operationalizing beliefs as intention proxies to study the switch between honesty and dishonesty in simultaneous and sequential move sequences. The results indicate asymmetries; while lying is strongly contagious, truth-telling is weakly so.

Suggested Citation

  • Colzani, Paola & Michailidou, Georgia & Santos-Pinto, Luis, 2023. "Experimental evidence on the transmission of honesty and dishonesty: A stairway to heaven and a highway to hell," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 231(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:231:y:2023:i:c:s0165176523002823
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2023.111257
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176523002823
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econlet.2023.111257?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Johannes Abeler & Daniele Nosenzo & Collin Raymond, 2019. "Preferences for Truth‐Telling," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 87(4), pages 1115-1153, July.
    2. Apffelstaedt, Arno & Freundt, Jana & Oslislo, Christoph, 2022. "Social norms and elections: How elected rules can make behavior (in)appropriate," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 196(C), pages 148-177.
    3. Urs Fischbacher & Franziska Föllmi-Heusi, 2013. "Lies In Disguise—An Experimental Study On Cheating," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 525-547, June.
    4. Abeler, Johannes & Becker, Anke & Falk, Armin, 2014. "Representative evidence on lying costs," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 96-104.
    5. Andreas Diekmann & Wojtek Przepiorka & Heiko Rauhut, 2015. "Lifting the veil of ignorance: An experiment on the contagiousness of norm violations," Rationality and Society, , vol. 27(3), pages 309-333, August.
    6. Hillenbrand, Adrian & Verrina, Eugenio, 2022. "The asymmetric effect of narratives on prosocial behavior," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 241-270.
    7. Kajackaite, Agne & Gneezy, Uri, 2017. "Incentives and cheating," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 433-444.
    8. Rilke, Rainer Michael & Danilov, Anastasia & Weisel, Ori & Shalvi, Shaul & Irlenbusch, Bernd, 2021. "When leading by example leads to less corrupt collaboration," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 288-306.
    9. Sjaak Hurkens & Navin Kartik, 2009. "Would I lie to you? On social preferences and lying aversion," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 12(2), pages 180-192, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Benoît Le Maux & David Masclet & Sarah Necker, 2024. "Monetary incentives and the contagion of unethical behavior," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 213-231, December.
    2. Lunzheng Li & Philippos Louis & Zacharias Maniadis & Dimitrios Xefteris, 2024. "Reciprocity in Peer Assessments," University of Cyprus Working Papers in Economics 06-2024, University of Cyprus Department of Economics.
    3. Despoina Alempaki & Valeria Burdea & Daniel Read, 2021. "Deceptive Communication: Direct Lies vs. Ignorance, Partial-Truth and Silence," CESifo Working Paper Series 9286, CESifo.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dufwenberg, Martin & Dufwenberg, Martin A., 2018. "Lies in disguise – A theoretical analysis of cheating," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 248-264.
    2. Feess, Eberhard & Schilling, Thomas & Timofeyev, Yuriy, 2023. "Misreporting in teams with individual decision making: The impact of information and communication," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 209(C), pages 509-532.
    3. Hübler, Olaf & Koch, Melanie & Menkhoff, Lukas & Schmidt, Ulrich, 2021. "Corruption and cheating: Evidence from rural Thailand," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 145, pages 1-43.
    4. Geraldes, Diogo & Heinicke, Franziska & Kim, Duk Gyoo, 2021. "Big and small lies," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    5. Vranceanu, Radu & Dubart, Delphine, 2019. "Deceitful communication in a sender-receiver experiment: Does everyone have a price?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 43-52.
    6. Georgia Michailidou & Hande Erkut, 2022. "Lie O'Clock: Experimental Evidence on Intertemporal Lying Preferences," Working Papers 20220076, New York University Abu Dhabi, Department of Social Science, revised Apr 2022.
    7. Maggioni, Mario A. & Rossignoli, Domenico, 2020. "Clever little lies: Math performance and cheating in primary schools in Congo," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 380-400.
    8. Schitter, Christian & Fleiß, Jürgen & Palan, Stefan, 2019. "To claim or not to claim: Anonymity, symmetric externalities and honesty," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 13-36.
    9. Marie Claire Villeval, 2019. "Comportements (non) éthiques et stratégies morales," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 70(6), pages 1021-1046.
    10. Harris, Donna & Borcan , Oana & Serra, Danila & Telli, Henry & Schettini, Bruno & Dercon, Stefan, 2024. "Proud to Belong: The Impact of Ethics Training on Police Officers in Ghana," CEPR Discussion Papers 19141, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Duc Huynh, Toan Luu, 2020. "Replication: Cheating, loss aversion, and moral attitudes in Vietnam," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    12. Radu, Vranceanu & Delphine, Dubart, 2019. "Experimental evidence on deceitful communication: does everyone have a price ?," ESSEC Working Papers WP1806, ESSEC Research Center, ESSEC Business School.
    13. Dato, Simon & Feess, Eberhard & Nieken, Petra, 2019. "Lying and reciprocity," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 193-218.
    14. Garbarino, Ellen & Slonim, Robert & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2019. "Loss aversion and lying behavior," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 158(C), pages 379-393.
    15. Aksoy, Billur & Palma, Marco A., 2019. "The effects of scarcity on cheating and in-group favoritism," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 100-117.
    16. Blazquiz-Pulido, Juan Francisco & Polonio, Luca & Bilancini, Ennio, 2024. "Who's the deceiver? Identifying deceptive intentions in communication," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 451-466.
    17. Jérôme Hergueux & Nicolas Jacquemet & Stéphane Luchini & Jason F. Shogren, 2022. "Leveraging the Honor Code: Public Goods Contributions under Oath," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 81(3), pages 591-616, March.
    18. Bortolotti, Stefania & Kölle, Felix & Wenner, Lukas, 2022. "On the persistence of dishonesty," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 1053-1065.
    19. Benistant, Julien & Galeotti, Fabio & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2022. "Competition, information, and the erosion of morals," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 204(C), pages 148-163.
    20. Andrea Albertazzi, 2022. "Individual cheating in the lab: a new measure and external validity," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 93(1), pages 37-67, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Lying; Truth-telling; Moral behavior; Conditional behavior; Laboratory experiment; Die-rolling paradigm;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C90 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - General
    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior
    • D90 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:231:y:2023:i:c:s0165176523002823. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolet .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.