Abstract Reporting private information is a key part of economic decision making. A recent literature has found that many people have a preference for honest reporting, contrary to usual economic assumptions. In this paper, we investigate whether preferences for honesty are malleable and what determines them. We experimentally measure preferences for honesty in a sample of children. As our main result, we provide causal evidence on the effect of the social environment by randomly enrolling children in a year-long mentoring programme. We find that, about four years after the end of the programme, mentored children are significantly more honest.
Theories of dishonest behavior implicitly assume language independence. Here, we investigated this assumption by comparing lying by people using a foreign language versus their native tongue. Participants rolled a die and were paid according to the outcome they reported. Because the outcome was private, they could lie to inflate their profit without risk of repercussions. Participants performed the task either in their native language or in a foreign language. With native speakers of Hebrew, Korean, Spanish, and English, we discovered that, on average, people inflate their earnings less when they use a foreign language. The outcome is explained by a dual system account that suggests that self‐serving dishonesty is an automatic tendency, which is supported by a fast and intuitive system. Because using a foreign language is less intuitive and automatic, it might engage more deliberation and reduce the temptation to lie. These findings challenge theories of ethical behavior to account for the role of the language in shaping ethical behavior. ; This project was supported by the Israel Science Foundation grant number 1337/11, by a grant from the University of Chicago's Wisdom Research Project and the John Templeton Foundation, a grant by the National Science Foundation #1520074 to the University of Chicago, a grant from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreements: ERC‐StG‐637915), two grants by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (PSI2014‐52181‐P; PSI2017‐84539‐P), a grant from the Catalan Government (SGR 2017‐268), and a grant from the European Research Council under the European Community's Seventh Framework (FP7/2007–2013 Cooperation Grant Agreement 613465‐AThEME). Joanna D. Corey was supported by a grant from the Catalan Government (FI‐DGR).
Deterrence institutions are widely used in modern societies to discourage rule violations but whether they have an impact beyond their immediate scope of application is usually ignored. Using a quasiexperiment with naturally occurring variation in inspections we found evidence of spillover effects across contexts. We identified fraudsters and non-fraudsters on public transport who were or not exposed to ticket inspections by the transport company. We then measured the intrinsic honesty of the same persons in a new, unrelated context where they could misappropriate money. Instead of having an expected educative effect across contexts, the exposure to deterrence practices increased unethical behaviour of fraudsters but also, strikingly, of non-fraudsters, especially when inspection teams were larger. Learning about the prevailing norm is the most likely channel of this spillover effect.
