IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/trn/utwpce/1607.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Reacting to Unfairness: Group Identity and Dishonest Behavior

Author

Listed:
  • Nives Della Valle
  • Matteo Ploner

Abstract

Employees' misconduct can be attributed to experiences of unfairness. Does this dishonest reaction change when employees identify with the whole organization or with a subunit only? We experimentally investigate whether individuals are more likely to engage in dishonest behavior after having experienced unfairness perpetrated by a peer with a salient group identity. Two peers generate an endowment together, but only one can decide how to share it. They either share the same group identity or have distinct group identities. Then, they approach a task in which they can opportunistically engage in dishonest behavior. Our results show that when peers share the same group identity, unfair distributive decisions do not trigger a dishonest reaction. In contrast, when different group identities coexist, dishonest behavior is observed as a reaction to unfairness.

Suggested Citation

  • Nives Della Valle & Matteo Ploner, 2016. "Reacting to Unfairness: Group Identity and Dishonest Behavior," CEEL Working Papers 1607, Cognitive and Experimental Economics Laboratory, Department of Economics, University of Trento, Italia.
    • Handle: RePEc:trn:utwpce:1607
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www-ceel.economia.unitn.it/papers/papero16_07.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gill, David & Prowse, Victoria & Vlassopoulos, Michael, 2013. "Cheating in the workplace: An experimental study of the impact of bonuses and productivity," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 120-134.
    2. Weng, Qian & Carlsson, Fredrik, 2015. "Cooperation in teams: The role of identity, punishment, and endowment distribution," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 25-38.
    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. Charness, Gary & Jackson, Matthew O., 2007. "Group play in games and the role of consent in network formation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 136(1), pages 417-445, September.
    5. Gary S. Becker, 1974. "Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach," NBER Chapters, in: Essays in the Economics of Crime and Punishment, pages 1-54, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Lorenz Goette & David Huffman & Stephan Meier, 2006. "The Impact of Group Membership on Cooperation and Norm Enforcement: Evidence Using Random Assignment to Real Social Groups," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(2), pages 212-216, May.
    7. Roland Bénabou & Jean Tirole, 2011. "Identity, Morals, and Taboos: Beliefs as Assets," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(2), pages 805-855.
    8. James Konow, 2003. "Which Is the Fairest One of All? A Positive Analysis of Justice Theories," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 41(4), pages 1188-1239, December.
    9. Bucciol, Alessandro & Landini, Fabio & Piovesan, Marco, 2013. "Unethical behavior in the field: Demographic characteristics and beliefs of the cheater," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 248-257.
    10. Todd L. Cherry & Peter Frykblom & Jason F. Shogren, 2002. "Hardnose the Dictator," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(4), pages 1218-1221, September.
    11. Francesca Gino & Lamar Pierce, 2010. "Robin Hood Under the Hood: Wealth-Based Discrimination in Illicit Customer Help," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 21(6), pages 1176-1194, December.
    12. Sanjiv Erat & Uri Gneezy, 2012. "White Lies," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(4), pages 723-733, April.
    13. Uri Gneezy, 2005. "Deception: The Role of Consequences," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 384-394, March.
    14. George A. Akerlof & Rachel E. Kranton, 2000. "Economics and Identity," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(3), pages 715-753.
    15. Abeler, Johannes & Becker, Anke & Falk, Armin, 2014. "Representative evidence on lying costs," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 96-104.
    16. Cadsby C. Bram & Song Fei & Tapon Francis, 2010. "Are You Paying Your Employees to Cheat? An Experimental Investigation," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 1-32, April.
    17. Konow, James, 1996. "A positive theory of economic fairness," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 13-35, October.
    18. Kathrin Dengler-Roscher & Natalia Montinari & Marian Panganiban & Matteo Ploner & Benedikt Werner, 2015. "On the Malleability of Fairness Ideals: Order Effects in Partial and Impartial Allocation Tasks," Jena Economics Research Papers 2015-006, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    19. John, Leslie K. & Loewenstein, George & Rick, Scott I., 2014. "Cheating more for less: Upward social comparisons motivate the poorly compensated to cheat," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 123(2), pages 101-109.
    20. McLeish, Kendra N. & Oxoby, Robert J., 2007. "Identity, Cooperation, and Punishment," IZA Discussion Papers 2572, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    21. Erin L. Krupka & Roberto A. Weber, 2013. "Identifying Social Norms Using Coordination Games: Why Does Dictator Game Sharing Vary?," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 495-524, June.
    22. David Gill & Victoria Prowse, 2012. "A Structural Analysis of Disappointment Aversion in a Real Effort Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(1), pages 469-503, February.
    23. Francesca Gino & Lamar Pierce, 2010. "Lying to Level the Playing Field: Why People May Dishonestly Help or Hurt Others to Create Equity," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 95(1), pages 89-103, September.
    24. George A. Akerlof & Rachel E. Kranton, 2005. "Identity and the Economics of Organizations," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(1), pages 9-32, Winter.
    25. Dan Ariely & Nina Mazar, 2006. "Dishonesty in everyday life and its policy implications," Working Papers 06-3, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    26. Dreber, Anna & Johannesson, Magnus, 2008. "Gender differences in deception," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 99(1), pages 197-199, April.
    27. Rong, Rong & Houser, Daniel & Dai, Anovia Yifan, 2016. "Money or friends: Social identity and deception in networks," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 56-66.
    28. Glätzle-Rützler, Daniela & Lergetporer, Philipp, 2015. "Lying and age: An experimental study," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 12-25.
    29. McLeish, Kendra N. & Oxoby, Robert J., 2011. "Social interactions and the salience of social identity," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 172-178, February.
    30. Bucciol, Alessandro & Piovesan, Marco, 2011. "Luck or cheating? A field experiment on honesty with children," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 73-78, February.
    31. Houser, Daniel & Vetter, Stefan & Winter, Joachim, 2012. "Fairness and cheating," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(8), pages 1645-1655.
    32. Eckel, Catherine C. & Grossman, Philip J., 2005. "Managing diversity by creating team identity," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 58(3), pages 371-392, November.
    33. Roy Chen & Yan Chen, 2011. "The Potential of Social Identity for Equilibrium Selection," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(6), pages 2562-2589, October.
    34. Ploner, Matteo & Regner, Tobias, 2013. "Self-image and moral balancing: An experimental analysis," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 374-383.
    35. Ambrose, Maureen L. & Seabright, Mark A. & Schminke, Marshall, 2002. "Sabotage in the workplace: The role of organizational injustice," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 89(1), pages 947-965, September.
    36. Yan Chen & Sherry Xin Li, 2009. "Group Identity and Social Preferences," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(1), pages 431-457, March.
    37. James Konow, 2000. "Fair Shares: Accountability and Cognitive Dissonance in Allocation Decisions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 1072-1091, September.
    38. George A. Akerlof & Rachel E. Kranton, 2008. "Identity, Supervision, and Work Groups," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(2), pages 212-217, May.
    39. Chen, Yan & Li, Sherry Xin & Liu, Tracy Xiao & Shih, Margaret, 2014. "Which hat to wear? Impact of natural identities on coordination and cooperation," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 58-86.
    40. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, 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. Sabrina Jeworrek & Joschka Waibel, 2021. "Unethical employee behavior against coworkers following unkind management treatment: An experimental analysis," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(5), pages 1220-1234, July.
    2. Benistant, Julien & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2019. "Unethical behavior and group identity in contests," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 128-155.
    3. Schnedler, Wendelin, 2022. "The broken chain: evidence against emotionally driven upstream indirect reciprocity," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 136, pages 542-558.
    4. Mark Alfano & Hannes Rusch & Matthias Uhl, 2018. "Ethics, Morality, and Game Theory," Games, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-4, April.
    5. Dugar, Subhasish & Shahriar, Quazi, 2023. "Lying for votes," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 46-72.
    6. Martina Manfre' & Viola Angelini, 2018. "Does The Financial Situation affect Cheating Behavior? An Investigation through Financial Literacy," Working Papers 06/2018, University of Verona, Department of Economics.
    7. Jin Zheng & Arthur Schram & Gönül Doğan, 2021. "Friend or foe? Social ties in bribery and corruption," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 24(3), pages 854-882, September.

    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. Houser, Daniel & List, John A. & Piovesan, Marco & Samek, Anya & Winter, Joachim, 2016. "Dishonesty: From parents to children," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 242-254.
    2. Daniel Houser & John List & Marco Piovesan & Anya Samek & Joachim Winter, 2015. "On the Origins of Dishonesty: from Parents to Children," Artefactual Field Experiments 00449, The Field Experiments Website.
    3. Galeotti, Fabio & Kline, Reuben & Orsini, Raimondello, 2017. "When foul play seems fair: Exploring the link between just deserts and honesty," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 451-467.
    4. Cadsby, C. Bram & Du, Ninghua & Song, Fei, 2016. "In-group favoritism and moral decision-making," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 59-71.
    5. Catrine Jacobsen & Toke Reinholt Fosgaard & David Pascual†Ezama, 2018. "Why Do We Lie? A Practical Guide To The Dishonesty Literature," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(2), pages 357-387, April.
    6. Morita, Hodaka & Servátka, Maroš, 2013. "Group identity and relation-specific investment: An experimental investigation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 95-109.
    7. Weng, Qian & Carlsson, Fredrik, 2015. "Cooperation in teams: The role of identity, punishment, and endowment distribution," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 25-38.
    8. Benistant, Julien & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2019. "Unethical behavior and group identity in contests," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 128-155.
    9. Marie Claire Villeval, 2019. "Comportements (non) éthiques et stratégies morales," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 70(6), pages 1021-1046.
    10. Jiang, Jiang & Li, Sherry Xin, 2019. "Group identity and partnership," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 202-213.
    11. Bernd Irlenbusch & Marie Claire Villeval, 2015. "Behavioral ethics: how psychology influenced economics and how economics might inform psychology?," Post-Print halshs-01159696, HAL.
    12. Rosenbaum, Stephen Mark & Billinger, Stephan & Stieglitz, Nils, 2014. "Let’s be honest: A review of experimental evidence of honesty and truth-telling," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 181-196.
    13. Fuhai Hong & Yohanes E. Riyanto & Ruike Zhang, 2022. "Multidimensional social identity and redistributive preferences: an experimental study," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 93(1), pages 151-184, July.
    14. Dimant, Eugen, 2015. "On Peer Effects: Behavioral Contagion of (Un)Ethical Behavior and the Role of Social Identity," MPRA Paper 68732, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Gill, David & Prowse, Victoria & Vlassopoulos, Michael, 2013. "Cheating in the workplace: An experimental study of the impact of bonuses and productivity," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 120-134.
    16. Zhixin Dai & Fabio Galeotti & Marie Claire Villeval, 2018. "Cheating in the Lab Predicts Fraud in the Field: An Experiment in Public Transportation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(3), pages 1081-1100, March.
    17. Horstmann, Elaine & Blankenberg, Ann-Kathrin & Schneider, Tim, 2017. "Cooperation in public goods games: Enhancing effects of group identity and competition," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 324, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    18. Chowdhury, Subhasish M. & Jeon, Joo Young & Ramalingam, Abhijit, 2016. "Identity and group conflict," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 107-121.
    19. Agnes Bäker & Mario Mechtel, 2019. "The Impact Of Peer Presence On Cheating," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 57(2), pages 792-812, April.
    20. Barr, Abigail & Lane, Tom & Nosenzo, Daniele, 2018. "On the social inappropriateness of discrimination," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 153-164.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Group Identity; Fairness; Dishonesty;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior
    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:trn:utwpce:1607. 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: Marco Tecilla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/detreit.html .

    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.