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                        CES 5621

                                                                                   Příloha_č.6 Výzvy_clanek_Ar1ely Dlshonest

NINA MAZAR, ON AMIR, and DAN ARIELY*

                                        People like to think of themsBlves as honest. However, dishonesty
                                     pays—and it ofteri pays well. How do people resolve this tensian? This
                                     research shows that people behave dishonestly enough to profit but
                                     honestiy enough to deludé themselves of their own integrity. A little bit
                                     oí dishonesty gives a taste of profit without spoiling a positive seff-view.
                                    Two mechanisme allow for such self-concept maintenance: inattention ta
                                     moral standards and categorization malleability. Six experiments support
                                    the authors’ theory of self-concept maintenance and offar practical
                                     applications for curbing dishonesty in everyday life.

                                     Keywords: honesty, decision maklng, pollcy, šelf

The Dishonesty of Honest People: A Theory
   of Self-Concept Maintenance

   It is almost íropossible to open a newspaper or tmu on a                        selfish human behavior (i.e., homo economicus) is the
television without being exposed to a report of dishonest                          belief that people carry out dishonest acts consciously and
behavior of one type oř another. To give a few examples,                           deliberatively by trading off the expected extemal benefits
“wardrobing”—the purchase, use, and then retům of the                              and costs of the dishonest act (AlLingham and Sandmo
ušed clothing—costs the U.S. retail industry an estimated                          1972; Becker 1968). According to this perspective, people
$16 billion annually (Speigbts and Hilinski 2005); the over-                       would consider three aspects as they pass a gas station: the
all magnitude of fraud in the U.S, property and casualty                           expected amount of cash they st&nd to gain from robbing
insurance industry is estimated to be 10% of total claims                          the plače, the probability of being caught in the act, and the
payments, oř $24 billion annually (Accenture 2i}03); and                           magnitude of punishment if caught. On the basis of these
the "tax gap ” oř the difference between what the Intemal                          inputs, people reach a decision that maximízes their inter-
Revenue Service estimates taxpayers should pay and what                            ests, Thus, according to this perspective, people are honest
they actually pay, exceeds $300 billion annually (more than                        or dishonest only to the extent that the planned trade-off
15% mmeompl janče rate; Herman 2005). If this evidence is                          favors a particular action (Hechter 1990; Lewicki 1984). In
not disturbing enough, perhaps the largest contribution to                         addltion to being centra! to economic theory, this extemal
dishonesty comes from empíoyee theft and fraud, which                              cost-benefit view plays an important role in the theory of
has been estimated at $600 billion a year in tbe United                            erime and punishment, which forms the basis for most pol-
States slone—an amount almoat twice the market capitali-                           icy measures aimed at preventing dishonesty and guides
zation of General Electric (Association of Čerti fied Fraud                        punishments against those who exhibit dishonest behavior.
Examiners 2006).                                                                   In summary, this standard extemal cost-benefit perspective
                                                                                   generates three hypotheses as to the foTces that are expected
             WHYARE PEOPLE (DÍS)HONEST?                                            to i n urease the frequency and magnitude of dishonesty:
                                                                                   higher magnitude of extemal rewards (Ext-Hi), lower
   Rooted in the philosophies of Thomas Hobbes, Adam                               probability of being caught (Ext-H2)5 and lower magnitude
Smith, and the standard economic model of ratitmal and                             of punishment (Ext-H3),

   •"Nina Mazar is Assistant Professor of Marketing, Joseph L. Rntman                 From a psychological perspective, and in addition to
School of Management University of Toronto (e-mail; nina.inazoi@                   financial consideratíons, another set of important inputs to
utoronío.ca). Oq Amir is Assistant Professor of Marketing, Rady School of          the decision whether to be honest is based on intemal
Management, University of Califoruia. San Diego (e-mail: uamirOucsd.               rewards. Psychologists show that as part of soeialization,
edu). Dan Ariely is Visiting ProfessoT of Marketing, Fnqua School of Busi­         people intemalize the norms and values of their society
ness, Duke University (e-mail: dandan@duke.edu). The authors tbank                 (Campbell 1964; Henrich et al. 2001), which serve as an
Daniel Berger, Anat Bracha, Aimee Drolee, and Hffany Kofiolcharoen for             intemal benchmark against which a person compares his of
their help in condccting the experiments. as well as Ricunlo E. Puxson fur         her behavior. Compliance with the interna! values systém
his help in creatíng the matrices. Pierre Chándon served as asRociate editor       provides positive, rewards, whereas noncomplíance leads to
and Ziv Carmon served as guesl editor for this article.                            negative rewards (Le., punishments). The most direct evi-

© 200ti, American Marketing Association                                            Journal ofMarketing Reaeurvh
                                                                                   VaL XLV (December 200S), 633-644
ISSN: 0022-2437 (pritit), 1547-7193 (electronic)                              633
NINA MAZAR, ON AMIR, and DAN ARIELY*

                                            People like to think of themselves as honest. However, dishonesty
                                         pays—and it often pays well. How do people resolve this tension? This
                                         research shows that people behave dishonestly enough to profit but
                                         honestly enough to delude themselves of their own integrity. A little bit
                                         of dishonesty gives a taste of profit without spoiling a positive self-view.
                                        Two mechanisms allow for such self-concept maintenance: inattention to
                                         moral standards and categorization malleability. Six experiments support
                                        the authors’ theory of self-concept maintenance and offer practical
                                         applications for curbing dishonesty in everyday life.

                                         Keywords: honesty, decision making, policy, šelf

The Dishonesty of Honest People: A Theory
   of Self-Concept Maintenance

   It is almost impossible to open a newspaper or tum on a                         selfish human behavior (i.e., homo economicus) is the
television without being exposed to a report oť dishonest                          belief that people carry out dishonest acts consciously and
behavior of one type or another. To give a few examples.                           deliberatively by trading off the expected extemal benefits
“wardrobing”—the purchase, use, and then return of the                             and costs of the dishonest act (Allingham and Sandmo
ušed clothing—costs the U.S. retail industry an estimated                          1972; Becker 1968). According to this perspective, people
$16 billion annually (Speights and Hilinski 2005); the over­
al 1 magnitude of fraud in the U.S. property and casualty                          would consider three aspects as they pass a gas station: the
insurance industry is estimated to be 10% of total claims                          expected amount of cash they stand to gain from robbing
payments, or $24 billion annually (Accenture 2003); and                            the plače, the probability of being caught in the act, and the
the “tax gap,” or the difference between what the Intemal                          magnitude of punishment if caught. On the basis of these
Revenue Service estimates taxpayers should pay and what                            inputs. people reach a decision that maximizes their inter-
they actually pay, exceeds $300 billion annually (more than                        ests. Thus, according to this perspective, people are honest
15% noncompliance rate; Herman 2005). If this evidence is                          or dishonest only to the extern that the planned trade-off
not disturbing enough, perhaps the largest contribution to                         favors a particular action (Hechter 1990; Lewicki 1984). In
dishonesty comes from employee theft and fraud, which                              addition to being centrál to economic theory, this external
has been estimated at $600 billion a year in the United                            cost-benefit view plays an important role in the theory of
States alone—an amount almost twice the market capitali-                           crime and punishment, which forms the basis for most pol­
zation of General Electric (Association of Certified Fraud                         icy measures aimed at preventing dishonesty and guides
Examiners 2006).                                                                   punishments against those who exhibit dishonest behavior.
                                                                                   In summary, this standard external cost—beneťit perspective
              WH Y ARE PEOPLE (DfS)HONEST?                                         generates three hypotheses as to the forces that are expected
                                                                                   to increase the frequency and magnitude of dishonesty:
   Rooted in the philosophies of Thomas Hobbes, Adam                               higher magnitude of external rewards (Ext-H|), lower
Smith, and the standard economic model of rational and                             probability of being caught (Ext-Ho), and lower magnitude
                                                                                   of punishment (Ext-H^).
    *N5na Mazar Ls Assistant Professor of Marketing, Joseph L. Rotman
School of Management, University of Toronto (e-mail: nina.mazar®                      From a psychological perspective. and in addition to
utoronto.ca). On Amir is Assislanl Professor of Marketing. Rady School of          fmancial consideratíons, another set of important inputs to
Management. University of California, San Diego (e-mail: oamir@uesd.               the decision whether to be honest is based on internal
edu). Dan Ariely is Visiling Professor of Marketing, Fuqua School of Busi­         rewards. Psychologists show that as part of socialization.
ness. Duke University (e-mail: dandun@duke.edu). The authors thank                 people internalize the norms and values of their society
Daniel Berger. Anat Bracha, Aimee Drolee. and TilTany Kosolcharoen for             (Campbell 1964; Henrich et al. 2001), which serve as an
their help in conducting the experiments, as well as Ricardo E. Paxson for         intemal benchmark against which a person compares his of
his help in creating the matrices. PietTe Chandon served as associate editor       her behavior. Compliance with the internal values systém
and Ziv Carmon served as guest editor for this article.                            provides positive rewards, whereas noncompliance leads to
                                                                                   negative rewards (i.e., punishments). The most direct evi-

© 2008. American Marketing Association                                             Journal of Marketing Research
                                                                                   Vol. XLV (Decembcr 2008). 633-644
ISSN: 0022-2437 (prim). 1547-7193 (electronic)                                633
634  JOURNAL OF MARKETING RESEARCH, DECEMBER 2008

dence of (he existence of such internal reward mechanisms        they derive some financial benefit from behaving dishon-
comes from brain imaging studies lhát reveal that acts           estly but slili maintain their positive self-concept in terms
based on sociál norms, such as altruistic punishment or          of being honest. To be more precise, we posit a magnitude
sociál cooperation (De Quervain el al. 2004; Rilling et al.      range of dishonesty within which people can cheat, but
2002), activate the same primary reward centers in the brain     their behaviors, which they would usually consider dishon­
(i.e., nucleus accumbens and caudale nucleus) as external        est, do not bear negatively on their self-concept (i.e., they
benefits, such as preferred food, drink, and monetary gains      are not forced to update their self-concept).1 Although
(Knutson et al. 2001; 0'Doherly el al. 2002).                    many mechanisms may allow people to find such a compro-
                                                                 mise. we focus on two particular means: categorization and
   Applied to the coniext of (dis)honesty, we propose that       altention devoted to one’s own moral standards. Using these
one major way the internal reward systém exerts control          mechanisms, people can record their actions (e.g., “I am
over behavior is by influencing people’s self-concept—that       claiming $x in tax exemptions”) without confronting the
is, the way people view and perceive themselves (Aronson         moral meaning of their actions (e.g., “I am dishonest”). We
1969; Baumeister 1998: Bem 1972). Indeed. it has been            focus on these two mechanisms because they support the
shown that people typically value honesty (i.e.. honesty is      role of the self-concept in decisions about honesty and
part of their internal reward systém), that they háve strong     because we believe that they háve a wide set of important
beliels in their own morality, and that they want to maintain    applications in the markelplace. Although not always mulu-
this aspecl of their self-concept (Greenwald 1980; Griffin       ally exclusive, we elaboráte on each separately.
and Ross 1991; Josephson Institute of Ethics 2006: Sani-
tioso. Kunda, and Fong 1990). This means lhal if a person        Categorization
fails to comply with his or her internal standards for hon­
esty. he or she will need to negatively update his or her self-     We hypothesize that for ccrtain types of actions and mag-
concept, which is aversive. Conversely, if a person compiies     nitudcs of dishonesty, people can categorize their actions
with his or her internal standards, he or she avoids such        into more compatible terms and find rationalizations for
negative updating and maintains his or her positive self-        their actions. As a consequence, people can cheat while
view in terms of being an honest person. Notably, this           avoiding any negative sclf-signals that might affect their
perspective suggests that to maintain their positive self-       self-concept and thus avoid negatively updating their self-
concepts, people will comply with their internal standards       concept altogethcr (Gur and Sackeim 1979).
even when doing so involves investments of effort or sacri-
ficing financial gains (e.g., Aronson and Carlsmith 1962;           Two important aspects of categorization are its relative
Harris, Mussen, and Rutherford 1976; Sullivan 1953). In          malleability and its limit. First, behaviors with mallcablc
our gas station example, this perspective suggests that          categorization are those that allow people to reinterpret
people who pass by a gas station will be influenced not          them in a sclf-scrving manner, and the degrec of malleabil­
only by the expected amount of cash they stand to gain           ity is likely to be determined by their context. For example,
from robbing the plače, the probability of being caught, and     intuition suggests that it is easier to steal a $. 10 pencil from
the magnitude of punishment if caught but also by the way        a friend than to steal S. 10 out of the frienďs wallet to buy a
the act of robbing the store might make them perceive            pencil because the former sccnario offers more possibilitics
themselves.                                                      to categorize the action in terms that are compatible with
                                                                 friendship (e.g., my friend took a pencil from me once; this
   The utility derived from behaving in line with the self-      is what friends do). This thought experiment suggests not
concept could conceivably be just another part of the cost-      only that a higher degree of categorization malleability
benefil analysis (i.e., adding another variable to account for   facilitatcs dishonesty (stealing) but also that some actions
this utility). However, even if we consider this utility just    are inherently less malleablc and thcreforc cannot be cate-
another input, it probably cannot be manifested as a simple      gorized successfully in compatible terms (Dana, Weber, and
constant, because the influence of dishonest behavior on the     Kuang 2005; for a discussion of the idea that a medium,
self-concept will most likely depend on the particular           such as a pcn. can disguise the finál outcome of an action.
action, its symbolic value, its contexl, and its plasticity. In  such as stealing, see Hsee et al. 2003). In other words, as
the following sections, we characterize these elemenls in a      the categorization malleability inereases, so does the mag­
theory of self-concept maintenance and test the implica-         nitude of dishonesty to which a person can cornmit without
tions of this theory in a set of six experiments.                influencing his or her self-concept (Baumeister 1998;
                                                                 Pina e Cunha and Cabral-Cardoso 2006; Schweitzer and
   THE THEORY OF SELF-CONCEPT MAINTENANCE                        Hsee 2002).

   People are oflen torn between two competing motiva-              The second important aspcct of the categorization
tions: gaining from cheating versus maintaining a positive       process pertains to its inherent limit. The ability to categor­
self-concept as honest (Aronson 1969; Harris, Mussen, and        ize behaviors in ways other than as dishonest or immoral
Rutherford 1976). For example, if people cheat, they could       can be ineredibly useful for the šelf, but it is difficult to
gain financially but al the expense of an honest self-           imagine that this mechanism is without limits. Instead, it
concept. In contrast, if they také the high road. they might     may be possiblc to "streteh" the truth and the bounds of
forgo financial benefits but maintain their honest self-         mental representations only up to a ccrtain point (what
concept. This seems to be a win-lose situation, such that
choosing one palh involves sacrificing the other.                    'Our self-concept maintenance theory is based on how people dcťine
                                                                 honesty and dishonesty for themselves. regardless of whether their defini-
   In this work. we suggest that people typically solve this     tion matchcs the objective definition.
motivational dilemma adaptively by finding a balance or
equilibrium between the two motivating forces, such that
The Dishonesty of Honest People                                                                                                               635

Piaget [1950] calls assimilation and accommodalion). If we                     EXPERIMENT 1: INCREASING ATTENTION TO
assume that the categorization process has such built-in                   STANDARDS FOR HONESTY THROUGH REL/G/OUS
limils, we should conceptualize categorization as effective
only up to a threshold, beyond which people can no longer                                              REMINDERS
avoid the obvious moral valence of their behavior.
                                                                            The generál setup of all our experiments involves a
Attention to Standards                                                   multiple-question task. in which participants are paid
                                                                         according to their performance. We compare the perform­
   The other mechanism lhal we address in the current work               ance of respondents in the control condilions, in which they
is the attention people pay to their own standards of con-               háve no opportunity to be dishonest, with that of respon­
duct. This idea is related to Duval and Wicklunďs (1972)                 dents in the “cheating” conditions, in which they háve such
theory of objective self-awareness and Langeťs (1989) con-               an opportunity. In Experiment 1, we test the prediction lhal
cept of mindlessness. We hypothesize that when people                    increasing people’s attention to their standards for honesty
attend to their own moral standards (are mindful of them),               will make them more honest by contrasting the magnitude
any dishonest action is more likely to be reflected in their             of dishonesty in a condition in which they are reminded of
self-concept (they will update their self-concept as a conse-            their own standards for honesty with a condition in which
quence of their actions), which in turn will cause them to               they are not.
adhere to a stricter delineation of honest and dishonest
behavior. However, when people are inattentive to their own                 On the face of it, the idea that any reminder can decrease
moral standards (are mindless of them), their actions are not            dishonesty seems strange; after all. people should know that
evalualed relative to their standards, their self-concept is             it is wrong to be dishonest, even without such reminders.
less likely to be updated, and, therefore, their behavior is             However, from the self-concept maintenance perspective,
likely to diverge from their standards. Thus, the attention-             the question is not whether people know that it is wrong to
to-standards mechanism predicts that when moral standards                behave dishonestly but whether they think of these stan­
are more accessible. people will need to confront the mean-              dards and compare their behavior with them in the moment
ing of their actions more readily and therefore be more hon­             of temptation. In other words, if a mere reminder of hon­
est (for ways to increase accessibility, see Bateson, Nettle,            esty standards has an effecl, we can assert that people do
and Roberts 2006; Bering, McLeod, and Shackelford 2005;                  not naturally attend to these standards. In Experiment 1, we
Diener and Wallbom 1976; Haley and Fessler 2005). In this                implement this reminder through a sirnple recall task.
sense, greater attention to standards may be modeled as a
tighter range for the magnitude of dishonest actions that                Method
does not trigger updating of the self-concept or as a lower
threshold up to which people can be dishonest without                       Two hundrcd twenty-nine students participatcd in this
influencing their self-concept.                                          experiment, which consisted of a two-task paradigm as part
                                                                         of a broader experimental session with multiplc. unrelated
Categorization and Attention to Standards                                paper-and-pcneil tasks that appeared together in a booklet.
                                                                         In the first task, we asked respondents to write down cither
   Whereas the categorization mechanism depends heavily                  the names of ten books they had read in high school (no
on stimuli and actions (i.e., degree of malleability and mag-            moral reminder) or the Ten Commandmcnts (moral
nitude of dishonesty), the attention-to-standards mechanism              reminder). They had two minutes to complcte this task. The
relies on internal awareness or salience. From this perspec­             idea of the Ten Commandmcnts recall task was that inde­
tive, these two mechanisms are distinct; the former focuses              pendent of pcop!c’s religion, of whether people believed in
on the outside world, and the latter focuses on the inside               God. or of whether they knew any of the commandmcnts.
world. However, they are related in lhal they both involve               knowing that the Ten Commandmcnts are about moral rules
attention, are sensitive to manipulations, and are related to            would be enough to increase attention to their own moral
the dynamics of acceptable boundaries of behavior.                       standards and thus increase the likelihood of behavior con-
                                                                         sistent with these standards (for a discussion of reminders
   Thus, although the dishonesty that both self-concept                  of God in the contcxt of generosity, see Shariff and Noren-
maintenance mechanisms allow stems from different                        zayan 2007). The sccond, ostensibly separate task consisted
sources, they both tap the same basic concept. Moreover, in              of two sheets of páper: a test shect and an answer shcct. The
many reál-world cases, these mechanisms may be so inler-                 test sheet consisted of 20 matrices, each based on a set of
related that it would be difficult to distinguish whether the            12 three-digit numbers. Participants had four minutes to
source of this type of dishonesty comes from the environ-                find two numbers per matrix that added up to 10 (see Fig­
ment (categorization) or the individual (attention to stan­              uře 1). We seleeted this type of task because it is a search
dards). In summary, the theory of self-concept maintenance               task, and though it can také some time to find the right
that considers both external and internal reward Systems
suggests the following hypolheses:                                                                      Figuře 1

   Ext&lnt-H|: Dishonesty increases as attention to standards for                  A SAMPLE MATRIX OF THE ADDING-TO-10 TASK
                    honesty decreases.
                                                                         1.69  1.82  2.91
   Ext&lnt-H2: Dishonesty increases as categorization malleabil­
                    ity increases.                                       4.67  4.81  3.05

   Ext&lnt-Hv Given the opportunity to be dishonest. people are          5.82  5.06  4.28
                    dishonest up to a certain level that does not force
                    them to update their self-concept.                   6.36  5.19  4.57
636  JOURNAL OF MARKETING RESEARCH, DECEMBER 2008

answer, when it is foiind. the respondents could unambigu-        izenry overclaims on taxes, the very act of overclaiming is
ously evaluate whether they had solved the i|uestion cor-         generálly accepted and therefore not necessarily considered
rectly (assuming that they could add two numbers to 10            immoral. However, if this interpretation accounted for our
without error), without the need for a solution sheet and the     findings, increasing people’s attention to morality (Ten
possibility of a hindsight bias (Fischhoff and Beyth 1975).       Commandments/recycle condition) would not háve
Moreover, we ušed this task on the basis of a pretest that        decreased the magnitude of dishonesty. Therefore, we inter-
showed that participants did not view this task as one that       preted these findings as providing initial support for the
reflected their malh ability or intelligence. The answer          self-concept maintenance theory.
sheet was ušed to report the total number of correctly
solved matrices. We promised that at the end of the session.         Notě also that, on average, participants remembered only
two randomly selected participants would earn $10 foreach         4.3 of the Ten Commandments, and we found no significanl
correctly solved matrix.                                          correlation between the number of commandments recalled
                                                                  and the number of matrices the participants claimed to háve
   In the two control conditions (after the ten books and Ten     solved correctly (r = -.14, p = .29). If we use the number of
Commandments recall task, respectively), at the end of the        commandments remembered as a proxy for religiosity, the
four-minute matrix task, participants continued to the next       lack of relalionship between religiosity and the magnitude
task in the booklet. At the end of the entire experimental        of dishonesty suggests that the efficacy of the Ten Com­
session, the experimenler verified their answers on the           mandments is based on increased attention to internal hon­
matrix task and wrote down the number of correctly solved         esty standards. leading to a lower tolerance for dishonesty
matrices on the answer sheet in the booklet. In the two           (i.e., decreased self-concept maintenance threshold).
recycle conditions (after the ten books and Ten Command-
ments recall task, respectively), at the end of the four-            Finally, it is worth contrasting these results with people’s
minute matrix task, participants indicated the total number       lay theories about such siluations. A separate set of students
of correctly solved matrices on the answer sheet and then         (n = 75) correctly anticipated lhal participants would cheat
tore out the originál test sheet from the booklet and placed      when given the opportunity to do so, but they anticipated
it in their belongings (to recycle later), thus providing lbem    that the level of cheating would be higher than what it
with an opportunity to cheat. The entire experiment repre-        really was (Mpred Books/recycie = 9.5), and they anticipated
sented a 2 (type of reminder) x 2 (ability to cheat) between-     that reminding participants of the Ten Commandments
subjects design.                                                  would not significantly decrease cheating (MpredXei1
                                                                  Commandments/recycle — 2.8, t(73) = 1.61, p = . 1 1). The COntraSt
Results and Discussion                                            of the predicted results with the actual behavior we found
                                                                  suggests that participants understand the economic motiva­
   The results of Experiment 1 confirmed our prediclions.         tion for overclaiming, but they overestirnate its influence on
The type of reminder had no effect on participants’ per­          behavior and underestimate the effect of the self-concept in
formance in the two control conditions (Muooks/controi = 3.1      regulating honesty.
versus M-fen Commandments/comrol = 3.1, F( 1, 225) = .012./? =
.91), which suggests lhal the type of reminder did not influ-           EXPERIMENT2: INCREASING ATTENTION TO
ence ability or motivation. Following the book recall task.                  STANDARDS TOR HONESTY THROUGH
however, respondents cheated when they were given the                                COMMITMENT REMINDERS
opportunity to do so (MBooks/recvc|e = 4.2), but they did not
cheat after the Ten Commandments recall task (MTei1                  Another type of reminder, an honor eode, refers to a pro­
Coinmandments/recycle = 2.8; F(1, 225) = 5.24, p - .023). creat-  ceduře that asks participants to sign a statement in which
ing a significanl interaction between type of reminder and        they declare their commitment to honesty bcforc tuking part
ability to cheat (F(3, 225) = 4.52. p = .036). Nolably, the       in a task (Dickerson ct al. 1992; McCabc and Trevino 1993,
level of cheating remained far below the maximum. On              1997). Although many explanations háve been proposed for
average, participants cheated only b.1% of the possible           the effectivcness of honor codes ušed by many academie
magnitude. Most important, and in line with our notion of         institutions (McCabc, Trevino, and Butterfield 2002; sec
self-concept maintenance, reminding participants of stan­         http://www.academicintegri.ty.org), the self-concept mainte­
dards for morality eliminated cheating completely: In the         nance idea may shed light on the internal proccss under-
Ten Commandments/recycle condition. participants' per­            lying its success. In addition to manipulating the awarcness
formance was undistinguishable from those in the control          of honesty standards through commitment reminders at the
conditions (F( 1,225) = .49, p = .48).                            point of temptation, Experiment 2 represents an extension
                                                                  of Experiment 1 by manipulating the financial incentives
   We designed Experiment I to focus on the attention-to-         for performance (i.e., external benefits); in doing so, it also
standards mechanism (Ext&Int-H!)- but one aspecl of the           tests the external cost-bencfit hypothesis that dishonesty
results—the finding that the magnitude of dishonesty was          increases as the expected magnitude of reward from the dis­
limited and well below the maximum possible level in the          honest act increases (Ext-H|).
two recycle conditions—suggested that the categorization
mechanism (Ext&Int-H2) could háve been at work its well.          Method

   A possible alternativě interpretation of the books/recycle        Two hundred seven students parlicipated in Experiment
condition is that over their lifetime. participants developed     2. Using the same matrix task. we manipulated two faclors
standards for moral behavior according to which overclaim-        between participants: the amount earned per correctly
ing by a few questions on a test or in an experimental set-       solved matrix ($.50 and $2, paid to each participant) and
ting was not considered dishonest. If so, these participants      the attention to standards (control, recycle, and recycle +
could háve been completely honest from their point of view.       honor code).
Siinilarly. in a country in which a substantial part of the cit-
The Dishonesty of Honest People                                                                                                                   637

   In the two control conditions, at the end of five minutes,                magnitude of cheating; cheating was slightly more common
participants handed both the test and the answer sheets to                   (by approximately 1.16 questions), lhough not significantly
the experimenter, who verified Iheir answers and wrote                       so, in the $.50 condition (F(l. 201) = 2.1, p = .15). Thus,
down the number of correctly solved matrices on the                          we did not find support for Ext-Hj. A possible interpreta­
answer sheet. In the two recycle conditions, participants                    tion of this decrease in dishonesty with increased incentives
indicated the total number of correctly solved matrices on                   is that the magnitude of dishonesty and its effect on the
the answer sheet, folded the originál test sheet, and pluced                 categorization mechanism depended on both the number of
it in their belongings (to recycle later), thus providing them               questions answered dishonestly (which increased by 2.8 in
an opportunity to cheat. Only after lhal did they hand the                   lbe $.50 condition and 1.7 in the $2 condition) and the
answer sheet to the experimenter. The recycle + honor code                   amount of money inaccurately claimed (which increased by
condition was simiiar to the recycle condition except that at                S1.4 in the $.50 condition and $3.5 in the $2 condition). If
the top of the test sheet, there was an additional statement                 categorization malleability was affected by a mix of these
that read, “I understand that this shorl survey falls under                  two factors, we would háve expected the number of ques­
MIT’s [Yale’s] honor systém." Participants printed and                       tions that participants reported as correctly solved to
signed their names below the statement. Thus, the honor                      decrease with greater incentives (at leasl as long as the
code statement appeared on the same sheet as the matrices,                   extemal incentives were not too high).
and this sheet was recycled before participants submiiled
their answer sheets. In addition. to provide a test for Ext-                    Most important for Experiment 2, we found that the two
H|, we manipulated the payment per correctly solved                          recycle + honor code conditions ($.50 and $2: Mrecyc,e +.
matrix ($.50 and $2) and contrasted performance levels                       honor code = 3.0) eliminated cheating insofar as the perform­
between these two incentive levels.                                          ance in these conditions was undistinguishable from the
                                                                             two control conditions ($.50 and $2: Mcontro| = 3.3; F(l,
Results and Discussion                                                       201) = .19, p = .66) but significantly different from the two
                                                                             recycle conditions ($.50 and $2: Mre:cyc|e = 5.5; F(l. 201) =
   Figuře 2 depicts the results. An overall analysis of vari­                19.69. p < .001). The latter result is notable given that the
ance (ANOVA) revealed a highly significant effect of the                     two recycle + honor code conditions were procedurally
attention-to-standards manipulation (F(2, 201) = I 1.94, /; <                simiiar to the two recycle conditions. Moreover, the two
.001), no significant effect of the level of incentive manipu­               instimtions in which we conducted this experiment did not
lation (F(l, 201) = .99, /> = .32), and no significant inter-                háve an honor code systém al the time, and therefore,
action (F(2, 201) = .58, p = .56). When given the opportu­                   objeclively. the honor code had no iinplications of external
nity, respondents in the two recycle conditions ($.50 and                    punishment. When we replicated the experiment in an insti-
S2) cheated (Mr t.|e = 5.5) reiative to those in the two con­                tulion that had a slrict honor code, the results were identi-
trol conditions ($.50 and $2: MC0n„.O| = 3.3; F(l, 201) =                    cal, suggesting that it is not the honor code per se and its
15.99, p < .001), but again, the level of cheating fell far                  implied external punishment but rather the reminder of
below the maximum (i.e., 20); participants cheated only                      morality that was at play.
13.5% of the possible average magnitude. In line with our
findings in Experiment I, this latter result supports the idea                  Again, we asked a separate sel of students (n = 82) at the
that we were also observing the workings of the categoriza­                  institutions without an honor code systém to predict the
tion mechanism.                                                              results, and lhough they predicted that the increased pay­
                                                                             ment would marginally increase dishonesty (Mpred_$2 = 6.8
   Between the two levels of incentives ($.50 and $2 condi­
tions), we did not find a particularly large difference in the               versus Mpred_$.5() = 6.4; F(l, 80) = 3.3, p = .07), in essence

                               Figuře 2                                      predicting Ext-H], they did not anticipate that the honor
                                                                             code would significantly decrease dishonesty (Mpred_recy|ce +
 EXPERIMENT 2: NUMBER OF MATRICES REPORTED SOLVED                            honor code = 6.2 versus Mpred_recycle — 6.9, F( 1, 80) — .74. p —
                                                                             .39). The contrast of the predicted results with the actual
Control  Recycle Recycle + HC                                                behavior suggests that people understand the economic
                                                                             motivation for overclaiming, that they overestimate its
   Notes: Mean number of “solved” matrices in the control condition (no      influence on behavior, and that they underestimate the
ability to cheat) and the recycle and recycle + honor code (ilC) conditions  effect of the self-concept in regulating honesty. In addition,
(ability to cheat). Tile payment scheme was either $.50 or $2 per correct    the finding that predictors did not expect the honor code to
answer. Error bars are based on standard errors of the means.                decrease dishonesty suggests that they did not perceive the
                                                                             honor code manipulation as having impiications of extemal
                                                                             punishment.

                                                                                EXPERIMENT3: INCREASING CATEGORIZATION
                                                                                                         MALLEABILITY

                                                                                Making people mindful by increasing their attention to
                                                                             their honesty standards can curb dishonesty. but the theory
                                                                             of self-concept maintenance also implies that increasing the
                                                                             malleability to interpret one’s actions should increase the
                                                                             magnitude of dishonesty (Schweitzer and Hsee 2002). To
                                                                             test this hypothesis, in Experiment 3, we manipulate
                                                                             whether the opportunity for dishonest behavior occurs in
                                                                             terms of money or in terms of an intermediary medium
                                                                             (tokens). We posil that introducing a medium (Hsee et al.
638  JOURNAL OF MARKETING RESEARCH, DECEMBER 2008

2003) will offer participants more room for interpretation            EXPERIMENT 4: RECOGNIZ/NG ACTIONS BUT NOT
of their actions, making the moral implicalions of dishon­                         UPDATING THE SELF-CONCEPT
esty less accessible and thus making it easier for partici­
pants to cheat at higher magnitudes.                                   Our account of self-concept maintenance suggests that
                                                                    by engaging only in a relutively low level of cheating, par­
Method                                                              ticipants slayed within the threshold of acceptable magni­
                                                                    tudes of dishonesty and thus benefited from being dishonest
   Four hundred fifty students partícipated in Experiment 3.        without receiving a negative self-signal (i.e., their self-
Participants had five minutes to complcte the matrix task           concept remained unaffected). To achieve this balance, we
and were promised $.50 for each correctly solved matrix.            posil that participants recorded their actions correctly (i.e.,
We ušed three betwecn-subjects conditions: the same con­            they knew that they were overclaiming). but the categoriza­
trol and recycle conditions as in Experiment 2 and a recy­          tion and/or attention-to-standards mechanisms prevented
cle + token condition. The latter condition was simiiar to          this factual knowledge from being morally evaluated. Thus,
the recycle condition, except participants knew that each           people did not necessarily confront the true meaning or
correctly solved matrix would earn them one token, which            implications of their actions (e.g., “I am dishonest”). We
they would exchange for $.50 a few seeonds later. When the          test this prediction (Ext&Int-H^) in Experiment 4.
Five minutes clapsed, participants in the recycle + token
condition recycled their test sheet and submitted only their           To test the hypothesis that people are aware of their
answer sheet to an experimenter, who gave them the corrc-           actions bul do not update their self-concepts, we manipu-
sponding amount of tokens. Participants then went to a sec-         lated participants’ ability to cheat on the matrix task and
ond experimenter, who exchanged the tokens for money                measured their prediclions about their performance on a
(this experimenter also paicl the participants in the other         second matrix task that did not allow cheating. If partici­
conditions). We counterbalanced the roles of the two                panls in a recycling condition did not recognize that they
experimenters.                                                      overclaimed, they would base their predictions on their
                                                                    exaggeraled (i.e., dishonest) performance in the first matrix
Results and Discussio/t                                             task. Therefore, their predictions would be higher than the
                                                                    predictions of those who could not cheat on the first task.
   Simiiar to our previous findings, participants in the recy­      However, if participants who overclaimed were cognizant
cle condition solved significantly more questions than par­         of their exaggeraled claims, their predictions for a situation
ticipants in the control condition (Mrccj,c|c = 6.2 versus          that does not allow cheating would be attenuated and, theo-
Mcontral = 3.5; F( 1. 447) = 34.26. p < .001), which suggests       retically, would not differ from their counterparts’ in the
that they cheated. In addition, participants’ magnitude of          control condition. In addition, to test whether dishonest
cheating was well below the maximum—only 16.5% of the               behavior influenced people’s self-concept, we asked partici­
possible average magnitude. Most important, and in line             pants about their honesty after they completed the first
with Ext&lnt-H->, introducing tokens as the medium of               matrix task. If participants in the recycling condition (who
immediate exchange further increased the magnitude of dis­          were cheating) had lower opinions about themselves in
honesty (Mrecy|e + tokcn = 9.4) such that it was significantly      terms of honesty than those in the control condition (who
larger than it was in the recycle condition (F(l, 447) =            were not cheating), this would mean that they had updated
47.62, p < .001)—presumably without any changes in the              their self-concept. However, if cheating did not influence
probability of being caught or the severity of the                  their opinions about themselves, this would suggesl that
punishment.                                                         they had not fully accounted for their dishonest behaviors
                                                                    and, consequently, that they had not paid a price for their
   Our findings support the idea that claiming more tokens          dishonesty in terms of their self-concept.
instead of claiming more money offered more categoriza­
tion malleability such that people could interpret their dis­       Method
honesty in a more self-serving manner, thus reducing the
negative self-signal they otherwise would háve received. In            Forty-four students partícipated in this experiment,
terms of our current account, the recycle + token condition         which consisted of a four-task paradigm. administered in
increased the threshold for the acceptable magnitude of dis­        the following order: a matrix task. a personality test, a pre­
honesty. The finding that a medium could be such an                 diction task. and a second matrix task. In the first matrix
impressive facilitator of dishonesty may explain the incom-         task. we repeated the same control and recycle conditions
parably excessive contribution of employee theft and fraud          from Experiment 2. Participants randomly assigned to
(e.g., stealing office supplies and merchandise, putting            either of these two conditions had five minutes to complete
inappropriate expenses on expense accounts) to dishonesty           the task and received $.50 per correctly solved matrix. The
in the marketplace, as we reported previously.                      only difference from Experiment 2 was that we asked all
                                                                    participants (not just those in the recycle condition) to
   Finally, it is worth pointing out that our results differ        report on the answer sheet the total number of matrices they
from what a separate set of students (n = 59) predicted we          had correctly solved. (Participants in the control condition
would find. The predictors correctly anticipated that partici­      then submitted both the test and the answer sheets to the
pants would cheat when given the opportunity to do so               experimenter, who verified each of their answers on the test
(Mrre recycle > recycle+).                                 5                      ; — ~ r-

   4The goal of the recycle+ condition was to guarantee participants that            c\                m ihu              lI IlIlIlIlIlHl
their individual actions of taking money from the jar would not be observ-
able. Therefore. it was impossible to measure how much money each                                           nu ni
respondent took in this condition. We could reeord only the sum of money                     ,, ;; — ;
missing at the end of each session. For the purpose of statistical analysis,             21 24 27 30 33 36 39 42 45 48
we assigned the average amount taken per recycle-t- session to each partici-
panl in that session.                                                                                     Number of Questions

                                                                                   Notes: Frequency distribution of number of “solved” questions in the
                                                                               control condition (no ability to cheat) and two cheating conditions: no-
                                                                               recycle and recycle. The values on the y-axis represent the percentage of
                                                                               participants having “solved” a particular number of questions; the values
                                                                               on the x-axis represent ±l ranges around the displayed number (e.g., 21 =
                                                                               participants having solved 20. 21, or 22 questions).
642  JOURNAL OF MARKETING RESEARCH, DECEMBER 2008

a slronger lest would be to determine whether this conclu-      trade-off and are unappreciative of the regulative effective-
sion also holds across all six experiments. To do so, we        ness of the self-concept.6
converted the performance across all the experiments to be
proportional, that is, the number of questions reported            In principle, the theory we propose can be incorporated
solved relative to the maximum possible. Analyzing all con­     into economic models. Some formalizations related to it
ditions across our experiments (n = 1408), we again find        appear in recent economic theories of utility rnaximizalion
slrici stochastic dominance of the performance distributions    based on models of self-signaling (Bodner and Prelec 2001)
in conditions that allowed cheating over conditions that did    and identity (Bénabou and Tirole 2004, 2006). These mod­
not ([} = .15, t(1406) = 2.98, p = .003). We obtain similarly   els can be adopted to account for self-concept maintenance
reliable differences for each quantile of the distributions,    by incorporating attention to personál standards for honesty
suggesling that the overall mean difference (|3 = .134,         (meta-utility function and salience parameter sl, respec­
t( 1406) = 9.72, p < .001) was indeed caused by a generál       tively) and categorization malleability (interpretation func­
shift in the distribution ralher than a large shift of a smáli  tion and probability 1 - X, respectively). These approaches
porlion of the distribution.                                    convey a slowly spreading conviction among economists
                                                                that to study moral and sociál norms. altruism. reciprocity,
                      GENERAL DISCUSSION                        or antisocial behavior, the underlying psychological moli-
                                                                valions that vary endogenously with the environment must
   People in almost every society value honesty and main­       be understood (see also Gneezy 2005). The data presented
tain high beliefs about their own morality; yet examples of     herein offer further guidance on the development of such
significant dishonesty can be found everywhere in the mar-      models. In our minds, the interplay between these formal
ketplace. The standard cost-benefit model, which is centra!     models and the empirical evidence we provide represents a
to legal theory surrounding crime and punishment, assumes       fruitful and promising research direction.
that dishonest actions are performed by purely selfish. cal-
culating people, who only care about external rewards. In          Some insighls regarding the functional from in which the
contrast, the psychological perspective assumes that people     external and internal rewards work togelher emerge from
largely care about internal rewards because they want, for      the dala, and these findings could also provide worthwhile
example, to maintain their self-concept. On the basis of        palhs for further investigations in both economics and psy­
these two exlreme starting poinls, we proposed and tested a     chology. For example, the results of Experiment 2 show
theory of self-concept maintenance that considers the moti-     that increasing external rewards in the form of increasing
valion from both external and internal rewards. According       benefits (monetary incentive) decreased the level of dishon­
to this theory, people who think highly of themselves in        esty (though insignificantly). This observation matches
terms of honesty make use of various mechanisms that            findings from another matrix experiment in which we
allow them to engage in a limited amount of dishonesty          manipulated two factors between 234 participants: the abil-
while retaining positive views of themselves. In other          ily to cheat (control and recycle) and the amount of pay-
words, there is a band of acceptable dishonesty that is lim­    menl to each participant per correctly solved matrix ($. 10.
ited by internal reward consideratíons. In particular, we       S.50, $2.50. and S5). In this 2x4 design, we found limited
focus on two related but psychologically distinct mecha­        dishonesty in the $.10 and $.50 conditions but no dishon­
nisms that influence the size of this band—categorization       esty in lbe $2.50 and $5 conditions. Furthermore, the mag-
and attention to standards—which we argue háve a wide set       nilude of dishonesty was approximately the same for $.10
of important applications in the marketplace.                   and $.50. Togelher, these observations raise the possibility
                                                                of a step function-like relationship—constanl, limited
   Across a set of six experiments we found support for our     amount of dishonesty up to a certain level of positive exter­
theory by demonstraling lhal when people had the ability to     nal rewards, beyond which increasing the external rewards
cheat, they cheated, bul the magnitude of dishonesty per per­   could limit categorization malleability, leaving no room for
son was relatively low (relative to the possible maximum        under-the-radar dishonesty. In this way, dishonesty may
amount). We also found that. in generál, people were insen-     actual ly decrease with extemal rewards.
sitive to the expected extemal costs and benefits associated
with the dishonest acts, but they were sensitive to contex-        Finally, it is worthwhile noling some of the limitations of
tual manipulations related to the self-concept. In particular,  our results. The first limitation is related directly to the rela­
the Level of dishonesty dropped when people paid more           tionship between external and intemal rewards. Arguably, at
attention to honesty standards and climbed with increased       some point at which the extemal rewards become very high.
categorization malleability (Dana, Weber, and Kuang 2005).      they should lempt the person sufficiently to prevail
                                                                (because the external reward of being dishonest is much
   Some of the results provide more direcl evidence for the     larger than the internal reward of maintaining a positive
self-concept maintenance mechanism (Experiment 4) by            self-concept). From that point on, we predicl that behavior
showing that even though participants knew that they were       would be largely infiuenced by external rewards, as the
overclaiming, their actions did not affect their self-concept   standard economic perspective predicts (i.e., ultimalely, the
in terms of honesty. Notě also that, in contrast. predictors    magnitude of dishonesty will increase with increasing. high
expected dishonest actions to háve a negative effect on the     extemal rewards).
self-concept. This misunderstanding of the workings of the
self-concept also manifested in respondents’ inability to          6Note that our manipulations in their generál form may bc vicwed as
predicl the effects of moral reminders (Ten Commandments
and honor code) and mediums (tokens), suggesting that, in       priming. In this scnsc. our results may generalize to a much larger class of
generál, people expecl others to behave in line with the        manipulations that would curtail cheating behavior and may be useful
standard economic perspective of an external cost-benefit       when. for example. the Ten Commandmcnts or honor codes are not a fea-

                                                                sible solution, such as purehasíng environments.
The Dishonesty of Honest People                                                                                                       643

   Another limitation is that our results did not support a      gest that increasing people's attention to their own stan­
sensitivity to others' reported behaviors, implying that, for    dards for honesty and deereasing the categorization mal-
example, self-estccm or norm compliance consideratíons do        leabílily could be effective remedies. However. the means
not influence people’s decisions about being dishonest. We       by which to incorporate such manipulations into everyday
do not imply that such effects are not převalení or perhaps      scenarios in which people might be tempted to be dishonest
even powerful in the marketplace. For example, it could be       (e.g., returning ušed clothes, filling out tax returns or insur-
that the sensitivity to others operates slowly toward chang-     ance claims), to determine how abstract or concrete these
ing a person’s globál internal standards for honesty. rather     manipulations must be to be effective (see Hayes and Dun-
than having a large influence on the local instances of dis­     ning 1997), and to discover methods for fighting adaptation
honesty, such as those that took plače in our experiments.       to these manipulations remain open questions.

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Commentaries and Rejoinder to ‘The
   Dishonesty of Honest People”

               Hypermotivation                                                                           H YPERMOTÍVA TiON

     SCOTT RICK and GEORGE LOEWENSTEIN*                                             A closer examination of many of the acts of dishonesty
                                                                                 in the reál world reveals a striking pattern: Many, if not
   In their clever and insightful article, Mazar. Amir. and                      most, appear to be motivated by the desire to avoid (or
Ariely (2008) propase that people balance two competing                          recoup) losses rather than the simple desire for gain. A
desires when deciding whether to behave dishonestly: the                         wide range of evidence suggests that people who find them­
motivation for personál gain and the desire to maintain a                        selves “in a hole” and believe that dishonest behavior is the
positive self-concept. Their studies focus on the latter fac-                    only apparent means of escape are more likely to cheat.
tor. showing that people behave dishonestly when it pays.                        steal, and lie. For example, several studies háve found that
but only to the extent that they can do so without violating                     people are more likely to cheat on their taxes when they
their perception of themselves as honest. The research is                        owe than when they are due for a refund (e.g.. Chang and
innovalive and important. It has already had an influence on                     Schultz 1990; Schepanski and Kelsey 1990).
policies dealing with conflicts of interest in medicine
(Association of American Medical Colleges 2007) and.                                Prospect theory’s (Kahneman and Tversky 1979) concept
even before its own publication. has spawned significant                         of loss aversion might seem to provide a natural account of
follow-up research (Vohs and Schooler 2008).                                     what could be called “hypermotivation”—a visceral statě
                                                                                 that leads a person to také actions he or she would normally
   In our opinion, the main limitation of Mazar, Amir, and                       deem to be unacceptable. Loss aversion suggests that the
Ariely’s article is not in the perspective it presents but                       motivation to avoid a loss will be greater—approximately
rather in what it leaves out. Although it is important to                        two to three times so—than the motivation to obtain a gain
understand the psychology of rational ization, the other fac-                    of equivalent value, which helps explain why being in a
tor that Mazar. Amir, and Ariely recognize but then largely                      hole produces such strong motivation. However, such sim­
ignore—námely, the motivation to behave dishonestly—is                           ple amplification of value does not fully capture the magni­
arguably the more important side of the dishonesty                               tude of motivation produced by such situations, which often
equalion.                                                                        has a powerful emotional component—a feeling of intense
                                                                                 misery and desperation. Much as miseries, such as hunger
   The motivation side is especially important, in part                          and pain, tend to crowd out altruism (Loewenstein 1996).
because the propensity to rationalize is itself a function of                    hypermotivation can cause people to shed. temporarily, the
the motivation to do so. Given sufficient motivation, people                     ethieal constraints of everyday lite.
can persuade themselves of almost anything. including why
behavior they normally would consider unethical is morally                          In a remarkable study of the causes of hypermotivation,
acceptable. Research on the self-serving faimess bias (for a                     Cressey (1950) personally interviewed hundreds of incar-
summary, see Babcock and Loewenstein 1997) shows that                            cerated embezzlers and pored through large data sets col-
people tend to conflate what is fair with what is in their per­                  lected by other researchers. He found that such erimes were
sonál interest, and the same is no doubt true of people’s                        a response to problems that often began with, as he put it,
judgments of what is ethieal. Given a sufficientiy powerful                      “gambling. drink, and extravagant living” (p. 739). One
motivation to commit an act of fraud, in generál, people are                     prisoner spontaneously came to a simiiar conclusion:
more than capable of rationalizing why it does not conflict
with their own ethieal precepts. Furthermore, after people                             Tlíc more I think about it. tlíc more I'm inelined to
háve taken the first step toward unethical behavior. a large                           think that before a person does a thing Iike that he must
body of research shows that subsequenl steps into the abyss                             liuvc doně something previously that tlíc community
of immorality become progressively easier (e.g., Lifton                                 wouldiťt approve of. If he’s in an env iron ment and
1986; Milgram 1963).                                                                    isn't leading a double lifc and docsivt háve anything to
                                                                                        liidc, I caif t conccivc of him starting with an embez-
    *Scott Riek is a posidocloral fellow and lecturer, The Wharton School,              zlcment. He has to do something previously. (Cressey
University of Pennsylvania (e-mail: srick@ wharton. upenn.edu). George                  1953, p. 40)
Loewenstein is Herbert A. Simon Professor of Economics and Psychology,
Department of Sociál and Decision Sciences, Camegie Mellon University            After subjecting his extensive database to an intense
(e-mail: gl20@andrew.cmu.edu). Rick thunks the Risk Management and               serutiny. which he labeled “negative čase analysis,” and
Decision Processes Center at Wharton for funding. Ziv Carmon served as           systematically attempting to challenge his own conclusions.
guest editor for this commenlary.                                                Cressey (1950, p. 742) proposed the fotlowing:

                                                                                       Trustcd persons become trust violators when they con-
                                                                                       ceivc of themselves as having a financial problém
                                                                                        which is non-shareable, háve the knowiedge or avvarc-

© 2008. American Marketing Association                                           Journal of Marketing Research
                                                                                 Vol. XLV (Deccmber 2008). 645-653
ISSN: 0022-2437 (prim). 1547-7193 (eleetronic)                              645
646  JOURNAL OF MARKETING RESEARCH, DECEMBER 2008

       ncss that this problém can bc secrctly resolved by vio-     people are loss averse. tliey are also powerful ly averse to
       lation of the position of financial trust, and are able to  inequality (Loewenstein, Thompson, and Bazcrman 1989).
       apply to their own conduct in that situation verbaliza-
       tions which enable them to acl just their conceptions of       Academia is a domain in which reference points are par-
       themselves as trusted persons with their conceptions of     ticularly likely to be defined in terms of the attainments of
       themselves as users of the entrusted funds or propeny.      others. Academia is becoming inereasingly competitive,
                                                                   and the (professional) achievements of others háve never
The rational i zations (or “verbalizations”) that Mazar, Amir,     been easier to assess (through Online curricula vitae or pro-
and Ariely study play a role in Cressey’s framework. How­          filcs). The increasing intensity of competition within acade­
ever, they are only the tínal step in a process set into motion    mia can be ťelt at all levels. More undergraduale students
when people find themselves in troubíc as a result of “non-        are entering graduate school with curricula vitae that elicit
shareable financial probletns.”                                    jealousy from some of their older peers. and the publication
                                                                   requirements for getting a first job are approaching a level
   A further difference between Cressey’s (1950) embez­            that not long ago would háve been sufflcient for tenure at
zlers and Mazar, Amir, and Ariely’s cheaters is how the two        most institutions. Even journals are becoming inereasingly
evaluale their dishonesty in retrospect. Participants in           competitive with one another (Huber 2007; Lawrence
Mazar, Amir, and Ariely’s Experiment 4 realized that they          2003). With standards ratcheting upward, there is a kind of
had cheated, bul they did not believe that they needed to          “arms race” in which academics at all levels must produce
update the extern to w'hich they view'ed themselves as hon­        more to achieve the same career gains. Some of this
est. In contrast, Cressey’s (1953, p. 120) embezzlers              increased productivity is enabled by new technology, such
“define themselves as eriminals, find this definition incom-       as computers and the Internet, and some comes from people
patiblc with their posilions as trusted persons, and usually       putting in longer hours. However, some of it. we fear,
condemn themselves for their past behavior." Although              comes from researchers pushing the envelope of honesty—
rationalizations likely preceded the dishonesty observed           or worse.
both in Mazar, Amir, and Ariely’s (2008) laboratory studies
and in Cressey’s real-world cases, Cressey’s findings sug-            An unfortunate iinplication of hypermotivation is that as
gest that serious acts of dishonesty can be rationalized only      competition within a domain increases, dishonesty also
for so long.                                                       tends to increase in response. Goodstein (1996) feared as
                                                                   much over a decadc ago:
   DePaulo and colleagues (2004) observe a simiiar pattern
in a study in which undergraduale students and nonstudent                 Throughout most of its recent history, science was con-
adults were asked to deseribe the most serious lie they ever              strained only by the Iimits of imagination and creativ-
told. They found that “the vast majority of serious lies orig-            ity of its participants. In the past couple of decades that
inate with bad behaviors" (p. 164). Unlike the participants               statě of affairs has changed dramatically. Science is
in Mazar, Amir, and Ariely’s studies, who lied to achieve a               now constrained primarity by the number of research
modest amount of additional profit, participants in DePaulo               posts, and the amount of research funds available.
and colleagues’ study lied to hide extramarital affairs, gam-             What had always previously been a purely intellectual
bling debts, and other serious transgressions that could                  competition has now become an intense competition
jeopardize careers or marriages if revealed. Moreover.                    for scarce resources. This change, which is permanent
DePaulo and colleagues’ participants reported feeling                     and irreversible, is likely to háve an undesirable effect
disiressed while lelling their lies, and those who were ulti-             in the long run on ethieal behavior among scienlisis.
mately caught reported feeling guilty and remorseful.                     Instances of scientific fraud are almost sure to become
Again, as in Cressey’s (1950, 1953) studies, it appears that              more coinmon.
many of DePaulo and colleagues’ participants were ulti-
mately forced to update their self-concept.                           Whereas recent high-profile instances of data falsifica-
                                                                   tion in the medical Sciences háve received much attention in
   The feeling of being in a hole not only originates from         Science (e.g., Couzin and Schirber 2006; Normile 2006;
nonshareable unethical behavior bul also can arise, more           Xin 2006). anonymously self-reported data falsification has
prosaically, from overiy ambitious goals (Heath, Larrick,          rcccntly been documented in fields closer to home as well
and Wu 1999). In the lab, Schweitzer, Ordóňez, and Douma           (in marketing, see Mason, Bearden, and Richardson 1990;
(2004) find that participants who had ambitious goals over-        in economics, see List et al. 2001). In addition, Martinson,
stated their productivity significantly more often than par­       Anderson, and De Vries (2005) measured self-reported mis-
ticipants who were simply asked to do their best. In the           conducl among more than 3000 researchers funded by the
classroom, the prospect of falling short of one’s own per­         National Institutes of Health and found that onc-third
formance goals (Murdock and Anderman 2006) or perhaps              reported engaging in “questionable research practices”
parents’ goals (Pearlin. Yarrow, and Scarr 1967) appears to        (e.g., dropping observations or data points front analyses
encourage cheating. Likewise, in organizational settings,          because of a gut feeling that they were inaccurate). Surely,
the desire to meet ambitious profit goals often leads to           the moderate amount of self-reported misconduct is a mere
questionable accounting practices (Degeorge, Patel, and            lower bound on the actual amount of misconduct occurring.
Zeckhauser 1999; Jensen 2001; Prentice 2007).
                                                                                          CLOSING COMMENTS
                   ACADEMIE, HEAL THYSELF
                                                                      The economist Andrei Shlcifer (2004) explicitly argues
   Another important reference point that can lead to the          against our perspective in an article titled “Does Competi­
perception of being in a hole is the attainments of others.        tion Destroy Ethieal Behavior?” Although he endorses the
Research on sociál preferences has shown that as much as           premise that competitive situations are more likely to elicit
                                                                   unethical behavior, and indeed offers several examples
Commentaries and Rejoinder                                                                                                                           647

other than those provided here, he argues against a psycho­                     such registries for the behavioral Sciences because they
logical perspective and instead attempts to show that “con-                     should also offer the addcd benefit of making it more diffi­
ducl described as unethical and blamed on 'greeď is some-                       cult for researchers to fudge their data.
times a consequence of market competition” (p. 414).
However, we believe that he makes a fundamental mistake                            Some may object to the tise of registries on the grounds
in implicilly viewing greed as an individua! difference                         that they will invariably lower productivity. However, we
variable that can be conlrasled with market conditions. In                      believe that (slightly) reduced productivity could be benefi-
contrast to Shleifer, we argue that conditions of extreme                       ciai. for at least two reasons. One reason is based on the
competition Jead to unethical behavior exactly because they                     vicious circle in which fraud and standards act to influence
lead to greed—that is, hypermotivation.1 By raising aspiru-                     one another: Fraud increases productivity, which in turn
tions above what is possible to attain with normál, moral                       raises standards, which in turn stimulates fraud. Curbing
means, competition creates the psychological conditions for                     research transgressions could break the eyele, reducing pro­
fraud.                                                                          ductivity and bringing standards back down to earth. The
                                                                                second benefit is that making it more difficult to publish
   Shleifer (2004) concludes optimistically, arguing that                       fudged findings would benefit those who otherwise would
competition will lead to economic growth and lhal wealth                        háve based subsequeni research on those findings. There is
tends to promote high ethieal standards. We are more pes-                       a nonnegligible proportion of findings in our field that is
simistic and, we believe, more pragmatie. Competition may                       difficult to replicate. Whereas some of these failures to
promote progress. but it also inevitably creates winners and                    replicate are due to differences in subject populalions. to
losers, and usually more of the latter than the former. The                     hidden moderators, or to good luck on the part of the initial
perceived difference in oulcomes between winners and los­                       researchers or bad luck on the part of those conducting
ers (e.g., get the job and the good life versus remain unem-                    follow-up studies, some are surely due to the research mis-
ployed and deprived) has the polenlial to hypermotivate                         demeanors or felonies of the originál authors. Making it
would-be losers to turn themselves into winners through                         more difficult for researchers to misbehave could reduce
unethical behavior.                                                             the amount of time spent trying and failing to replicate the
                                                                                unreplicable.
   How should society respond to the problems caused by
hypermotivation? Unfortunately, practical concerns limit                                                     REFERENCES
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Mason. J. Barry, William O. Bearden, and Lynne D. Richardson         of their own šelf; they want to possess certain traits and
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Murdock, Tamera B. and Eric M. Anderman (2006). “Motiva-             ways, exploiting ambiguity and ignoring evidence when
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   University Team,” Science, 311 (5761), 595.                       dishonest šelf. What complicates matters is that this cost
                                                                     may be reduced or avoided through diversion of attention
Pearlin. Leonard L. Marian R. Yarrow, and Hany A. Scarr (1967),
   “Unintended Effects of Parental Aspirations: The Čase oťChil-          ‘John R. Monterosso is Assistant Professor of Psychology, Department
   dren’s Cheating,” American Journal of Sociology, 73 (1),          of Psychology. University of Southern Calilornia. Los Angeles (e-mail:
   73-83.                                                            johnrmon@usc.evlu). Daniel D. Langleben is Associale Professor of Psy­
                                                                     chiatry, University of Pennsylvania (e-mail: langlebe@upenn.edu). The
Prentice, Robert A. (2007), “Ethieal Decision Making: More           authors lhank David Seelig for helpíul comments. The authors received
   Needed Than Good Intentions,” Financial Analysis Journal, 63      financial support from the lollowing sources: NIH DA015746 (DL), NIH
   (6), 17-30.                                                       R01DA021754 (JM), and NIH R01DA023176 (JM).

Schepanski. Albert and David Kelsey (1990), “Testing for Frarn-
   ing Effects in Taxpayer Compliance Decisions,” Journal of the
  American Taxation Association, 12 (Fall). 60-77,

Scholz, John T. and Neil Pinney (1995), "Duty, Fear, and Tax
   Compliance: The Heuristie Basis of Citizenship Behavior,”
  American Journal of Political Science, 39 (2), 490-5 12.

Schweitzer, Mauriee E.. Lisa Ordóňez. and Bambi Douma (2004),
   "Goal Sctting as a Motivator of Unethical Behavior,” Academy
   of Management Journal, 47 (3), 422—32.

Shleifer, Andrei (2004), "Does Competition Dcstroy Ethieal
   Behavior?” American Economic Review, Papers and Proceed-
   ings, 94 (2), 414-18.

Simes. Robert J. (1986), “Publication Bias: The Čase for an Inter­
   national Registry of Clinical Triais,” Journal ofCIinical Oncol-
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Vohs, Kathlccn D. and Jonathan W. Schooler (2008), "The Valtic

   of Believing in Free Will: Encouraging a Belief in Determinism
   Increases Cheating,” Psychological Science, 19 (1), 49-54.
Commentaries and Rejoinder                                                                                                           649

and rationalization (what we loosely refer lo as “self-         been found to be associated with increased activalion in the
deception”).                                                    right ventral and lateral prefrontal cortex and decreased
                                                                response in the limbic systém (Anderson et al. 2004). This
   Compare self-signal valuation with the valuation of          pattern is simiiar to other-deception, with the addition of
money: $10,000 is differentially valued, but barring exotic     the limbic systém. We speculate that brain activity associ­
circmnstances, it will always háve some positive value, and     ated with labeling self-signals as unwanted and keeping
its value can be inferred on the basis of what a person will    them from entering awareness may help distinguish self-
trade for it. However, as Mazar. Amir, and Ariely rightly       ťrom other-deception. The mechanism through which a
argue, the value of self-signals depends crucially on the       conflict between the existing self-image and an incoming
degree of prevailing seif-deception. That superficial moral     self-signal is detected may be simiiar to the one involving
reminders (i.e., the researchers’ Ten Commandments              the medial prefrontal and insular cortices and employed in
manipulation) háve such a large impact is, in itself, an        error monitoring (Klein el al. 2007). This mechanism may
important observation (Shariff and Norenzayan 2007), but        be deficient in certain addictive disorders (Forman et al.
it also suggests enormous volatility in the price of diagnos-   2004), which also involve gross discrepancies between self-
tic information that could complicate the transition from a     image and reality. The role of the limbic systém as the
clever demonstration to actual modeling of the behavior.        modulátor of the prefrontal cognitive and motor control
                                                                (Goldstein et al. 2007; Schaefer et al. 2002) makes it a can-
          CAN COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE HELP                       didate for a simiiar role in modulating the degree of aware­
 D/STINGUISH SELF-DECEPTION FROM DECEPTION                      ness of unwanted self-signals. Thus, we anticipate that neu­
                                                                roscience experiments using functional imaging technology
                               OF OTHERS?                       would be able to characterize the self-deception and other-
                                                                deception, as well as other processes underlying the dishon­
   Although Mazar, Amir, and Ariely’s behavioral methods        esty of honest people.
achieve a high level of external validity, they do not allow
individual occurrences of cheating to be recorded. This is         The idea that immoral behavior is constrained by motiva­
understandable; tempting participants and surreptitiously       tions related to a desired self-concept is not new. Among
capturing individual acts of dishonesty may be incompali-       other places, it is well developed in the work of Sigmund
ble with the standards of informed consent. However, many       Freud, as is the idea of motivated avoidance of undesirable
critical questions cannot be addressed by group distribu­       self-signals (some Freudian “defense" mechanisms, includ-
tions (e.g., What distinguishes those who cheat from those      ing repression, can bc so characterized). However. the idea
who do not?). Moreover, if Mazar, Amir. and Ariely are          has largely been ignored by hard-nosed empirical behav­
correct that deception of others is constrained by self-        ioral scientists because there has not been an obvious way
signaling and that, in turn, self-signaling is constrained by   to move to the type of well-specified predictive models that
self-deception (and we believe that they make a compelling      made economics the most practically useful of the sociál
čase), further progress will depend on finding ways lo study    Sciences. The recent interest front economists (Bodner and
these underlying processcs. Here, there may be an opportu­      Prelec 1997) and empiricists, such as Mazar, Amir, and
nity for the methods of cognitive neuroscience to be pro-       Ariely, may clear a path forward, and neuroimaging may
ductively brought to bear.                                      provide the best hopc yet of elucidating the neural mecha­
                                                                nisms of the processes underlying human self-signaling.
   Cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience háve         The most exciting implication of Mazar, Amir. and Ariely’s
well-developed methods for decomposing complex pro-             findings may be that they highlight the long way left to go.
cesses (Aguirre and D’Esposito 1999). These methods háve        In the meantime, the authors may find themselves in
already been applied to the study of deception. intent, and     demand the next time U.S. Congress debates the merits of
awareness, using functional magnetit' resonance imaging         school prayer.
(fMRI), which allows changes in brain activity to bc meas-
ured on a spatial scale of a few millimeters and a temporal                                   REFRENCES
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reproducible pattem of lateral prefrontal and parietal activa-  Batson, C., J. Fultz, and P. Schoenrade (1987), “Distress and
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simplification (Langleben et al. 2005; Sip et al. 2008;         Becker, Gary S. (1991), A Treatise on the Family. Cambridge,
Spence et al. 2008: Ward et al. 2003).                             MA: Harvard University Press.

   At the time of this writing, we are not aware oťpublished    Bern. D. (1965), “An Experimental Analysis of Self-Persuasion,"
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                                                                Bodner. R. and D. Prelec (1997), “The Diagnostic Value of
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650  JOURNAL OF MARKETING RESEARCH, DECEMBER 2008

Camcrer, C. and R. Thaler (1995), “Ultimatums, Dictators, and            Ventrolateral Prefrontal Cortex to Vocal Deception,” Neumltn-
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                                                                      Tabibnia, G. and M.D. Lieberman (2007), "Fairncss andCoopera-
Forman, S.D., G.G. Dougherty, B..I. Cascy, G.J. Sicglc, T.S.             tion Are Rcwarding: Evidence from Sociál Cognitive Ncuro-
   Braver, D.M. Barch. et al. (2004), “Opiáte Addicts Lack Error-        science,” Armals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1118.
   Dependent Activation of Rostral Anterior Cingulate," Biologi­         90-101.
   emi Psychiatry, 55 (5). 531 -37.                                   Trivers, R.L. (1971), “The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism,”
                                                                         Quarterly Review of Biology, 46 (I), 35-57.
Goldstein, M„ G. Brendel, O. Tucscher, H. Pan, J. Epstein, M.         Ward, N.S., D.A. Oaklcy, R.S. Frackowiak. and P.W. Halligan
   Beutel. et al. (2007), “Neural Substrates of the Interaclion of       (2003), “Diffcrcntial Brain Activations During Intcntionally
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   An Emotional Linguistic Go/No-Go fMRI Study,” Neurolmage,             Neuropsychiatry, 8 (4), 295-312.
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                                                                        More Ways to Cheat: Expanding the
Hamilion, W.D. (1964), “The Genetical Evolutioii of Sociál                        Scope of Dishonesty
   Behaviour 1 and II,” Journal ofTheorelical Biology, 7(1), 1 -52.
                                                                            NINA MAZAR, ON AMIR, and DAN ARIELY*
Haynes. J.D. (2008), “Detecting Deception from Neuroimaging
   Signals: A Data-Driven Perspective,” Trends in Cognitive Sci­         In our article on the dishonesty of honest people (Mazar,
   ences, 12(4). 126-27.                                              Amir, and Ariely 2008), we proposed a theory of self-
                                                                      concept maintenance that aliows people who consider
Klein, T.A., T. Endrass, N. Kathmann. J. Neumann, D.Y. von Cra-       themselves honest human beings and háve high beliefs in
   mon, and M. llllsperger (2007), “Neural Correlates of Error        their own morality to cheat “a little bit” without altering
   Awareness," Neurolmage, 34 (4), 1774—81.                           their self-image. In other words, they can benefit financially
                                                                      from their dishonesty without paying the cost involved in
Langleben, D.D. (2008), “Detection of Deception with fMRI: Are        “recognizing” themselves as being dishonest. This concept
   We There Yet?” Legal and Criminological Psychology, 13 (I).        results in a substantial amount of “mostly honest” people.
   1-9.                                                               Although this is the pessimistic interpretation of our results,
                                                                      the optimistic perspective is that our participants did not
--------- , J.W. Loughead, W.B. Bilker. K. Ruparel. A.R. Childress,   cheat enough (i.e., as much as standard economics would
   S.L Busch, and R.C. Gur (2005), "Telling Truth From Lic in         predict)! That is, even when there were no external conse­
   Individual Subjects with Fast Evenl-Related fMRI,” Human           quences to cheating and even when the amount they could
   Brain Mapping, 26 (4), 262—72.                                     gain was substantial, they did not cheat much.

--------- , L. Schroeder, J.A. Maldjian, R.C. Gur, S. McDonald, J.D.     The generál idea behind the theory of self-concept inain-
   Ragland, C.P. 0’Brien, and A.R. Childress (2002), “Brain           tenance is that there is a range of dishonesty within which
   Activity During Simulated Deception: An Event-Relaled Func­        people do not need to confront the trne meaning or implica-
   tional Magnetic Resonance Study,” Neurolmage, 15 (3),              tions of their actions. Although our experimental evidence
   727-32.                                                            supports our theory, we agree with Monterosso and Lan­
                                                                      gleben (2008) that a necessary next step is to find ways to
Mazar, Nina, On Amir, and Dan Ariely (2008), “The Dishonesty          distinguish. at the process level, between dishonesty based
   of Honest People: A Theory of Self-Concept Maintenance,”           on the explicit trade-off of external costs and benefits and
   Journal of Marketing Research, 45 (December), 633-44.              the self-concept maintenance idea we propose (see also
                                                                      Wirtz and Kum 2006). In this regard, we suspect that neu­
Mead, G.H. ([ 1934] 1962). Minci, Šelf. and Society. Chicago: Uni­    roimaging research could prove useful (though we are also
   versity of Chicago Press.                                          obliged to mention that Amos Tversky ušed to say that the
                                                                      main finding of neuroimaging is that people think with
Sackeim, H. and R.C. Gur (1979), “Self-Deception, Other-              their brains). but achieving this goal would require a differ­
   Deception, and Šelf-Reported Psychopathology,” Journal of          ent research methodology than the one we ušed in our stud­
   Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 47 (1), 213-15.                ies. In particular, instead of confronting participants with a
                                                                      one-shot game in which there is only one opportunity to be
Sanfey, A.G.. J.K. RiIIing. J.A. Aronson, L.E. Nystrom, and J.D.      dishonest and participants need to decide whether and to
   Cohen (2003), “The Neural Basis of Economic Decision-              what extent to cheat, a neuroimaging experiment would
   Making in the Ultimatum Game,” Science, 300 (5626).                require multiple decision-making trials, each of which
   1755-58.
                                                                          *Nina Mazar is Assistant Professor of Marketing. Joseph L. Rotman
Schaefer, S.M.. D.C. Jackson. R.J. Davidson. G.K. Aguirre. D.Y.       School of Management, University of Toronto (e-niail: nina.mazar<§>
   Kimberg, and S.L. Thompson-Schill (2002), “Modulation of           utoronto.ca). On Amir is Assistant Professor of Marketing, Rady School of
   Amygdalar Activity by the Conscious Regulation of Negative         Management, University of Califomia, San Diego (e-mail: oamir@ucsd.
   Emotion,” Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 14 (6), 913-21.       edu). Dan Ariely is Visiting Professor of Marketing, Fuqua School of
                                                                      Business, Duke University (e-mail: dandan@duke.edu).
SharilT, A.F. and A. Norenzayan (2007), "God Is Watching You:
   Priming God Concepts Increases Prosocial Behavior in an
   Anonymous Economic Game,” Psychological Science, 18 (9),
   803-809.

Sip. K.E.. A. Roepstorff, W. McGregor, and C.D. Frith (2008).
   “Detecting Deception: The Scope and Limits,” Trends in Cogni­
   tive Science, 12 (2), 48-53.

Soon, C.S.. M. Brass, H.J. Heinze, and J.D. Haynes (2008),
   “Unconscious Determinants of Free Decisions in the Human
   Brain,” Nátuře Neuroscience, I I (5), 543-45.

Spence, S. (2008), “Playing DeviPs Advocate: The Čase Against
   fMRI Lie Detection,” Legal and Criminological Psychology, 13
   (1), 11-25.

--------- , M.D. Hunter, T.F. Farrow. R.D. Grecn, D.H. Lcung, C.J.
   Hughes, and V. Ganesan (2004), "A Cognitive Neurobiological
   Account of Deception: Evidence from Functional Ncuroimag-
   ing,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of Lon­
   don, 359 (1451), 1755-62.

--------- , C. Kayior-Hughes, T.F. Farrow, and l.D. Wilkinson
   (2008), “Speaking of Secrets and Lies: The Contribution of
Commentaries and Rejoinder                                                                                                                         651

would require lhát parlicipants face the tlilemma of benefit-                    A second way we want to expand our understanding of
ing from dishonesty or acting honestly.2                                      dishonesty is by incorporating the perspective that Rick and
                                                                              Loewenstein (2008) propose. In our basic theory of self-
   One approach to such a multiple-trial type of experiment                   concept maintenance, we emphasize the role of two distinct
is to use the "dots game” that we recently developed to                       but interrelated mechanisms: categorization and attention to
investigate the dynamics of people’s decisions to cheat over                  moral standards. We hypothesize that for cerlain types of
time (Mazar and Ariely 2008). The proceduře is simple,                        actions and magnitudes of dishonesty, people can catego­
involving a Computer-based task in which participants see a                   rize their actions into more compatible terms and find
box divided by a diagonál line with 20 smáli dots inside the                  rationalizalions for them. As a consequence, people can
box. On each trial. the dots are presented for only one sec­                  cheat while avoiding any negative self-signals that might
ond, after which they disappear: participants are then asked                  affect their self-concept and thus avoid negatively updating
to indicate whether there were more dots in the left half of                  their self-concept altogelher (Gur and Sackeim 1979).
the box or in the right half of the box. When the response is                 Whereas the categorization mechanism depends heavily on
made. a new trial appears, and this goes on for a while.                      the external world In terms of the type of exchange, the
Although the task explicitly asks participants to indicate on                 objects in question, and so forth, the attention lo standards
which side there are more dots, the payment in this design                    mechanism relies on salience.-1
is such that it tempts participants to indicate that there are
more dots on the right side. That is, a participant receives                     Rick and Loewenstein (2008) emphasize the role of
higher payoffs ($.05) for every trial in which he or she cor­                 motivation as another important faelor. In particular, they
rectly or incorrectly identifies that the box has more dots on                point to two sources of motivation for dishonesty: competi­
the right side (simiiar to the situations physicians face) and                tion and avoidance or recoup of losses. Motivation can
lower payoffs ($.005) when he or she correctly or incor­                      influence people’s dishonesty in two major ways. First,
rectly identifies that the box has more dots on the left side.                motivation lo gel “out of a hole” can increase people’s
By creating this asymmelric payment, the task essenlially                     propensity for self-serving categorization, thus increasing
represents a conflict of interest, such that the main task of                 self-concept maintenance dishonesty. Second, it can háve a
telling the truth sometimes stands in opposition to the                       direcl effect on dishonesty through standard rational dis­
financial incentives physicians encounter on a daily basis.                   honesty. In particular, it can lead to a point al which the
                                                                              perceived extemal costs and benefits of dishonesty trump
   The results of a few experiments with this paradigm                        any consideratíons of maintaining an honest self-image; at
revealed two main findings: First, participants cheat when                    this point, people may carry out dishonest acts consciously
they háve the incentive and opportunity to do so. More                        and deliberatively.
important, when participants’ behavior is plotted over the
course of the entire experiment (100 trials), al some point,                     Figuře I depicts an extended framework for dishonesty
almost all participants switch to a response stratégy in                      that considers the three different mechanisms of categoriza­
which they cheat in every trial. This latter observation sug­                 tion, attention. and motivation. Although these mechanisms
gests that people who consider themselves honest try to                       are nol independent from one another, Mazar and Ariely
limit their cheating over multiple templations lo cheat,                      (2006) point out that making the right policy recommenda-
which is why they cheat only once in a while in the early
stages of the experiment; presumably, this behavior does                          ,The two mecbanisms are somewhal related. Forexampíe, more salienl
not pose any threat to their self-concept. However, if they
overstretch the tolerance of their self-concept. they create a                moral standards could also inake it more difficult to categorize behavior as
new situation in which they must face their own dishonesty,
which in turn causes them to give up and cheat all the                        not pertaining to morality.
way—a phenomenon simiiar to the “what-the-hell” effect
in the domain of dieting (Baumeister and Heatherton 1996;                                                    Figuře 1
Polvy and Herman 1985).
                                                                                        AN EXTENDED FRAMEWORK FOR DISHONESTY
   These results suggest that a neuroimaging experiment
could be useful to distinguish between different phases of                                       J f Competition A
the process. For example, a functional magnetic resonance
imaging (FMRI) technique could deliver further support for                                                            V losses
the different types of dishonesty we observe in the dots
experiment. In particular, it could help determine whether                    •Nonmalleability      Motivation
different areas of the brain are involved in the early trials                 of actions          Categorization O Dishonesty
(when there is a conflict between the temptation to be dis­                   •Magnitude
honest and the benefits of keeping a positive self-concept),                  of dishonesty          Attention
the trials in which people switch to a new stratégy, and the                                           Moral 'N
finál stage in which people adopt a different stratégy and
cheat continuously. Such knowledge could also be crucial                                        C reminders J
in discerning the different mechanisms involved in different
types of deception as well as in self-deception.

    -Moreover, care should be taken to convince participants that their dis­
honesty may go unnoticed.
652  JOURNAL OF MARKETING RESEARCH, DECEMBER 2008

tions to curb dishonesty requires the identification of        of office supplies, companies could plače salienl monelary
the mechanism that is driving dishonesty in a particular       values on these office supplies. In another example targel-
situation.                                                     ing the accounting profession, Bazerman, Loewenstein, and
                                                               Moore (2002; see also Bazerman and Loewenstein 2001)
   If the cause for dishonesty lies mainiy in motivation and   suggest passing laws or enforcing standards that bar audi-
standard rational dishonesty (i.e., dishonesty stemming        tors from offering both Consulting and tax Services to
from an explicit analysis of external cost and benefit), the   clients to decrease deceplivc audits.
benefits of being dishonest must be greater than its costs.
The solution then is to shift the imbalance such that the         Finally, it is also clear that dishonesty is complex and
costs become greater than the benefits. This can be            driven by many factors, including cultural norms and the
achieved by the standard legal approach of controlling the     slrenglhs of a persoifs own moral standards. For example,
external costs: increasing either the probability of being     in a recent study on the influence of cultural norms and
caught or the severity of the punishment. Good examples        legal enforcement in controlling corruplion, Fisman and
for this approach are the introduction of governmental task    Miguel (2007) found that diplomats from high-corruption
forces, such as the Department of Justice’s task force on      countrics accumulated significantly more unpaid parking
intellectual property, which, among other combat strategies.   violations. Togelher with other observations, such studies
invests in increasing the number of specially trained prose-   suggest that societies cannot underinvest in their educa-
eutors. The same is true for the Intemal Revenue Service’s     tional efforts to strengthen the internalization of moral stan­
increase in audits and the music industry’s aggressive         dards to make them part of their cultural norms. This basic
increase in filing lawsuits against individual deceivers.      premise requires the considcration of kcy questions, such as
                                                               the following: How best can this be doně? Is there a critical
   Recent evidence suggests that the probability of punish­    age period for the internalization of such standards (as in
ment is more important than increasing the severity of the     language and visual development)? What should the limits
punishment (Nagin and Pogarsky 2003). From this finding.       of such efforts be? and Should societies allow all idcologies
there might be ways to increase the effectiveness and effi-    to participate in the creation of internal standards? In addi­
ciency of standard measures accordingly. Informing the         tion. the considcration of self-concept maintenance also
important question of what is the optimal probability for      suggests that the theory of optimal punishment (optimal
deterrence, Barkan, Zohar. and Erev (1998) suggest that the    punishment trades off the benefits of deterrence and the
best approach is eliminating the probability of being caught   cost of punishing innoccnt people) should be rcconsidercd.
altogether—that is, moving to nonprobabilistic punish­         If the punishment magnitude is determined in a way that
ments (see also Erev et al. 2003). According to this per­      makes the costs slightly higher than the benefits and if
spective, a person who expects that driving through a red      these costs also include internal standards, the optimal pun­
light would involve a $500 Fine in 5% of the cases is more     ishment will bc lower by that amount. For example, if the
likely to drive through it than a person who has the same      expected benefit for a particular erime is Y and the internal
expected value but with ccrtainty of being caught (i.e., a     reward for honesty is X. the standard rational model would
definite $25 fine). More important, over time, the person in   preseribe a punishment with an expected magnitude of
the probabilistic punishment setting is going to discount the  —(Y + e), whereas the model that includes internal rewards
probability of the punishment further (as long as he or she    would preseribe —(Y + e) + X. The complexity is that not
is not caught), which in turn will lead to an even greater     everyone has the same level of internal standards, and to the
tendency for violation. Eliminating the probabilistic com-     degree that these are unobservable. it is difficult to assess
ponent from all undesirable behaviors is impossible, but it    the true level of optimal punishment (though it is possible
is clear that there are some cases (e.g., driving through an   that someday there will be a test for this). Conversely, signs
intersection at a red light) in which this is possible and     of repeated erimínal behavior, for example. can be taken as
desirable.                                                     an indication for a lower level of internalized standards.
                                                               causing the magnitude of X to be updated as lower. This
   A less common approach for fighting standard rational       type of framework, in which X is an individual variable,
dishonesty is to decrease the benefits of dishonesty and to    has the potential to help build a theory of repeated punish­
help people deal with their losses so that they do not feel    ment with the same desired principles of optimal punish­
trapped. This theory implies that measures such as debt        ment but with more effectiveness (i.e., a logical guideline
consolidation and credit counseling might prove successful.    for the magnitude of these policies).

   If the cause for dishonesty is inattention to moral stan­      In summary, there is no doubt that dishonesty is převa­
dards. however, implementing contextual cues at the point      lení in daily lite. To increase the effectiveness and effi-
oťtemptation might prove much more effective. For exam­        ciency of measures to prevent dishonesty. it is vital to
ple. the Internal Revenue Service could slightly change its    understand which of the distinct mechanisms is underlying
forms by asking people to sign an honor code statement         the behavior in a particular situation.
before filling out their tax forms or by making them more
personál. Another variation worth trying might be to                                        REFERENCES
include a survey that asks taxpaycrs questions such as how
much they care about their country, how important honesty      Barkan Ráchel, Dov Zohar, and Ido Erev (1998), “Accidents and
u'as to their parents, how many people they think lie on          Decision Making Under Risk: A Comparison of Four Models,”
their taxes, or what the typical profile is of tax evaders.       Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 74
                                                                  (2), I 18—44.
   If dishonesty is mainiy driven by categorization, the
challenge is to decrease the malleability of actions or to     Baumeister, Roy F. and Todd F. Heatherton (E996), “Self-
give people less room for various interpretations by increas­     Regulation Failure: An OverView,” Psychological Inquiry, 7(1).
ing transparency. For example, to decrease employee theft         1-15.
Commentaries and Rejoinder                                                                                                              653

Bazerman, Max H. and George Loewenstein (2001), “Taking the        --------- and---------- (2008), “Temporal Influences on Cheating
   Bias Out of Bcan Counting,” Harvard Business Review, 79 (I),       Behavior: The ‘What the Hcll’ Effect,” working páper, Sloan
   28.                                                                School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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