TY - JOUR

T1 - Drawing the line somewhere: An experimental study of moral compromise

AU - Lewis, Alan

AU - Bardis, Alexander

AU - Flint, Chloe

AU - Mason, Claire

AU - Smith, Natalya

AU - Tickle, Charlotte

AU - Zinser, Jennifer

PY - 2012/8

Y1 - 2012/8

N2 - In a study by Shalvi, Dana, Handgraaf, and De Dreu (2011) it was convincingly demonstrated that psychologically, the distinction between right and wrong is not discrete, rather it is a continuous distribution of relative ‘rightness’ and ‘wrongness’. Using the ‘die-under-the-cup’ paradigm participants over-reported high numbers on the roll of a die when there were financial incentives to do so and no chance of detection for lying. Participants generally did not maximise income, instead making moral compromises. In an adaptation of this procedure in a single die experiment 9% of participants lied that they had rolled a ‘6’ when they had not compared to 2.5% in the Shalvi et al. study suggesting that when the incentive is donation to charity this encourages more dishonesty than direct personal gain. In a follow-up questionnaire study where sequences of three rolls were presented, lying increased where counterfactuals became available as predicted by Shalvi et al. A novel finding is reported where ‘justified’ lying is more common when comparative gains are higher. An investigation of individual differences revealed that economics students were much more likely to lie than psychology students. Relevance to research on tax evasion, corporate social responsibility and the ‘credit crunch’ is discussed.

AB - In a study by Shalvi, Dana, Handgraaf, and De Dreu (2011) it was convincingly demonstrated that psychologically, the distinction between right and wrong is not discrete, rather it is a continuous distribution of relative ‘rightness’ and ‘wrongness’. Using the ‘die-under-the-cup’ paradigm participants over-reported high numbers on the roll of a die when there were financial incentives to do so and no chance of detection for lying. Participants generally did not maximise income, instead making moral compromises. In an adaptation of this procedure in a single die experiment 9% of participants lied that they had rolled a ‘6’ when they had not compared to 2.5% in the Shalvi et al. study suggesting that when the incentive is donation to charity this encourages more dishonesty than direct personal gain. In a follow-up questionnaire study where sequences of three rolls were presented, lying increased where counterfactuals became available as predicted by Shalvi et al. A novel finding is reported where ‘justified’ lying is more common when comparative gains are higher. An investigation of individual differences revealed that economics students were much more likely to lie than psychology students. Relevance to research on tax evasion, corporate social responsibility and the ‘credit crunch’ is discussed.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84857683267&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.joep.2012.01.005

U2 - 10.1016/j.joep.2012.01.005

DO - 10.1016/j.joep.2012.01.005

M3 - Article

VL - 33

SP - 718

EP - 725

JO - Journal of Economic Psychology

JF - Journal of Economic Psychology

SN - 0167-4870

IS - 4

ER -