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Clever Enough to Tell the Truth

Author

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  • Ruffle, Bradley

    (Wilfrid Laurier University)

  • Tobol, Yossef

    (Jerusalem College of Technology (JTC))

Abstract

We conduct a field experiment on 427 Israeli soldiers who each rolled a six-sided die in private and reported the outcome. For every point reported, the soldier received an additional half-hour early release from the army base on Thursday afternoon. We find that the higher a soldier's military entrance score, the more honest he is on average. We replicate this finding on a sample of 156 civilians paid in cash for their die reports. Furthermore, the civilian experiments reveal that two measures of cognitive ability predict honesty, whereas general self-report honesty questions and a consistency check among them are of no value. We provide a rationale for the relationship between cognitive ability and honesty and discuss its generalizability.

Suggested Citation

  • Ruffle, Bradley & Tobol, Yossef, 2016. "Clever Enough to Tell the Truth," IZA Discussion Papers 9860, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp9860
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    13. Ruffle, Bradley & Tobol, Yossef, 2013. "Honest on Mondays: Honesty and the Temporal Distance between Decisions and Payoffs," IZA Discussion Papers 7312, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
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    Cited by:

    1. Eitan Elaad, 2022. "Deceptive Behavior: Effects of Rational Thinking, Narcissism, and Self-Assessed Lie- and Truth Related Abilities," SAGE Open, , vol. 12(2), pages 21582440221, April.
    2. Lohse, Tim & Simon, Sven A. & Konrad, Kai A., 2018. "Deception under time pressure: Conscious decision or a problem of awareness?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 31-42.
    3. Bar-El, Ronen & Tobol, Yossef, 2017. "Honesty toward the holy day," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 13-17.
    4. Ellen Garbarino & Robert Slonim & Marie Claire Villeval, 2016. "Loss Aversion and lying behavior: Theory, estimation and empirical evidence," Working Papers halshs-01404333, HAL.
    5. Bar-El, Ronen & Tobol, Yossef, 2017. "Honesty toward the Holy Day," IZA Discussion Papers 10609, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Siniver, Erez & Yaniv, Gideon, 2018. "Losing a real-life lottery and dishonest behavior," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 26-30.
    7. Azar, Ofer H. & Applebaum, Mark, 2020. "Do children cheat to be honored? A natural experiment on dishonesty in a math competition," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 143-157.
    8. 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.
    9. Ellen Garbarino & Robert Slonim & Marie Claire Villeval, 2019. "Loss aversion and lying behavior," Post-Print halshs-01981542, HAL.
    10. Alice Guerra & Emanuela Randon & Antonello E. Scorcu, 2022. "Gender and deception: Evidence from survey data among adolescent gamblers," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 75(4), pages 618-645, November.
    11. Otero, Inmaculada & Salgado, Jesús F. & Moscoso, Silvia, 2022. "Cognitive reflection, cognitive intelligence, and cognitive abilities: A meta-analysis," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    12. Denvil Duncan & Danyang Li, 2018. "Liar Liar: Experimental Evidence of the Effect of Confirmation‐Reports on Dishonesty," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 84(3), pages 742-770, January.
    13. Tobol, Yossef & Siniver, Erez & Yaniv, Gideon, 2022. "Do restaurant customers who receive an unreasonably low bill bring it to the server’s attention? A field experiment on dishonesty," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    14. Guo, Qingke & Sun, Peng & Cai, Minghang & Zhang, Xiling & Song, Kexin, 2019. "Why are smarter individuals more prosocial? A study on the mediating roles of empathy and moral identity," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 1-8.
    15. 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.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    high non-monetary stakes; honesty; cognitive ability; soldiers;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments
    • M51 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Firm Employment Decisions; Promotions

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