In: Haran, U. & Shalvi S. (2019) The Implicit Honesty Premium:Why Honest Advice Is More Persuasive than Highly Informed Advice. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, Forthcoming
Cooperation is essential for completing tasks that individuals cannot accomplish alone. Whereas the benefits of cooperation are clear, little is known about its possible negative aspects. Introducing a novel sequential dyadic die-rolling paradigm, we show that collaborative settings provide fertile ground for the emergence of corruption. In the main experimental treatment the outcomes of the two players are perfectly aligned. Player A privately rolls a die, reports the result to player B, who then privately rolls and reports the result as well. Both players are paid the value of the reports if, and only if, they are identical (e.g., if both report 6, each earns €6). Because rolls are truly private, players can inflate their profit by misreporting the actual outcomes. Indeed, the proportion of reported doubles was 489 higher than the expected proportion assuming honesty, 48 higher than when individuals rolled and reported alone, and 96 higher than when lies only benefited the other player. Breaking the alignment in payoffs between player A and player B reduced the extent of brazen lying. Despite player B's central role in determining whether a double was reported, modifying the incentive structure of either player A or player B had nearly identical effects on the frequency of reported doubles. Our results highlight the role of collaboration—particularly on equal terms—in shaping corruption. These findings fit a functional perspective on morality. When facing opposing moral sentiments—to be honest vs. to join forces in collaboration—people often opt for engaging in corrupt collaboration.
"Difficult issues in negotiation act as interfering forces but their effects on negotiation processes and outcomes are unclear. Perhaps facing such obstacles leads individuals to take a step back, attend to the big picture and, therefore, to be able to craft creative, mutually beneficial solutions. Alternatively, facing obstacles may lead negotiators to focus narrowly on the obstacle issue, so that they no longer consider issues simultaneously, and forego the possibility to reach high quality, integrative agreements. Three experiments involving face-to-face negotiation support the "getting stuck" hypothesis, but only when negotiators are in a local processing mode and not when they are in a global processing mode. Implications for the art and science of negotiation, and for construal level theory, are discussed." [author's abstract]
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).
AbstractPeople vary in the extent to which they generally feel obligated to obey the law. The Obligation to Obey the Law (OOL) plays a major role in how people respond to legal rules and whether they comply or violate such rules. Most existing research on OOL has been non-comparative. The present paper explores national differences in OOL by analyzing data from a survey conducted among a convenience sample (n = 716) of law students in the Netherlands, the US, Israel, and China. In contrast to what existing research on procedural justice and OOL would lead us to expect, the data do not reveal significant differences in OOL across markedly different national populations. It explores why no such differences have been found and what the implications of these findings are for our understanding of OOL and compliance more broadly.