FOI Seminar 23 March 2012

Toke Fosgaard and Lars Gårn Hansen (FOI)
(with Francesca Gino and Marco Piovesan)

 

Social Norm Conformity and Cheating Behavior

 

Friday 23 March 2012, 12.30-13.30, Building A, first floor (the B.S. Jørgensen seminar room)

Abstract:

Our experiment aims to test if people cheat more (or less) when they receive information that others are cheating (or not cheating) and if the effect of this information depends on whom the ‘others’ are (whether the others are part of your in-group or are more distant ‘others’). We find striking differences between men and women both in who they react to and in their baseline cheating behavior. Women are equally concerned about in- and out-group behavior and are honest when they receive information that all others are honest. Men are only concerned about their in-group’s behavior. We can infer that men expect their in-group to be honest and even so about half of the men behave dishonestly. If women receive information that all others are dishonest about half become dishonest. When men receive this information about their in group almost all men become dishonest. Further we see that cheating behavior for both men and women is magnified by intelligence while general attitudes toward cheating are irrelevant for actual cheating behavior.