IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/soceco/v94y2021ics2214804321000689.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How the honesty oath works: Quick, intuitive truth telling under oath

Author

Listed:
  • Beck, Tobias

Abstract

This study analyzes the workings of oath-taking when the decision about lying requires strategic thinking. In a laboratory experiment, the oath leads to more truth telling, but it does not make liars reduce the sizes of their lies. While truth tellers decide faster due to the oath, liars need more time to decide under oath. By analyzing players’ beliefs about their co-players’ mistrust, I find that the oath reduces the extent of strategic reasoning in the decision whether to tell the truth or not. These findings are consistent with the conjecture that the honesty oath works by making the decision to tell the truth less deliberate and more intuitive.

Suggested Citation

  • Beck, Tobias, 2021. "How the honesty oath works: Quick, intuitive truth telling under oath," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:soceco:v:94:y:2021:i:c:s2214804321000689
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2021.101728
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214804321000689
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socec.2021.101728?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Capraro, Valerio & Schulz, Jonathan & Rand, David G., 2019. "Time pressure and honesty in a deception game," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 93-99.
    2. James G. MacKinnon & Russell Davidson, 1996. "The Size And Power Of Bootstrap Tests," Working Paper 932, Economics Department, Queen's University.
    3. Jacquemet, Nicolas & Joule, Robert-Vincent & Luchini, Stéphane & Shogren, Jason F., 2013. "Preference elicitation under oath," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 110-132.
    4. Mark R. Rutgers, 2013. "Will the Phoenix Fly Again?," Review of Social Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 71(2), pages 249-276, June.
    5. Camerer, Colin F & Hogarth, Robin M, 1999. "The Effects of Financial Incentives in Experiments: A Review and Capital-Labor-Production Framework," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 19(1-3), pages 7-42, December.
    6. Nicolas Jacquemet & Stephane Luchini & Jason Shogren & Verity Watson, 2019. "Discrete Choice under Oaths," Working Papers halshs-02136103, HAL.
    7. Lundquist, Tobias & Ellingsen, Tore & Gribbe, Erik & Johannesson, Magnus, 2009. "The aversion to lying," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 70(1-2), pages 81-92, May.
    8. Navin Kartik, 2009. "Strategic Communication with Lying Costs," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 76(4), pages 1359-1395.
    9. Schunk, Daniel & Betsch, Cornelia, 2006. "Explaining heterogeneity in utility functions by individual differences in decision modes," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 386-401, June.
    10. Nicolas Jacquemet & Stéphane Luchini & Jason F. Shogren & Adam Zylbersztejn, 2018. "Coordination with communication under oath," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 21(3), pages 627-649, September.
    11. Carlsson, Fredrik & Kataria, Mitesh & Krupnick, Alan & Lampi, Elina & Löfgren, Åsa & Qin, Ping & Sterner, Thomas, 2013. "The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth—A multiple country test of an oath script," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 105-121.
    12. Peeters, Ronald & Vorsatz, Marc & Walzl, Markus, 2015. "Beliefs and truth-telling: A laboratory experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 1-12.
    13. Nicolas Jacquemet & Stéphane Luchini & Julie Rosaz & Jason F. Shogren, 2019. "Truth Telling Under Oath," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(1), pages 426-438, January.
    14. Nicolas Jacquemet & Stéphane Luchini & Julie Rosaz & Jason Shogren, 2015. "Truth-telling under Oath," Post-Print halshs-01224135, HAL.
    15. Jacquemet, N. & Luchini, S. & Malézieux, A. & Shogren, J.F., 2020. "Who’ll stop lying under oath? Empirical evidence from tax evasion games," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    16. Matthias Sutter, 2009. "Deception Through Telling the Truth?! Experimental Evidence From Individuals and Teams," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(534), pages 47-60, January.
    17. Giamattei, Marcus & Lambsdorff, Johann Graf, 2019. "classEx — an online tool for lab-in-the-field experiments with smartphones," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 22(C), pages 223-231.
    18. Davidson, Russell & MacKinnon, James G., 1996. "The Power of Bootstrap Tests," Queen's Institute for Economic Research Discussion Papers 273372, Queen's University - Department of Economics.
    19. John R. Boatright, 2013. "Swearing to be Virtuous: The Prospects of a Banker's Oath," Review of Social Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 71(2), pages 140-165, June.
    20. Johannes Abeler & Daniele Nosenzo & Collin Raymond, 2019. "Preferences for Truth‐Telling," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 87(4), pages 1115-1153, July.
    21. Urs Fischbacher & Franziska Föllmi-Heusi, 2013. "Lies In Disguise—An Experimental Study On Cheating," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 525-547, June.
    22. Ariel Rubinstein, 2007. "Instinctive and Cognitive Reasoning: A Study of Response Times," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(523), pages 1243-1259, October.
    23. Beck, Tobias, 2020. "Size matters! Lying and Mistrust in the Continuous Deception Game," VfS Annual Conference 2020 (Virtual Conference): Gender Economics 224530, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    24. Daniel Kahneman, 2003. "Maps of Bounded Rationality: Psychology for Behavioral Economics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(5), pages 1449-1475, December.
    25. Nicolas Jacquemet & Stephane Luchini & Jason Shogren & Verity Watson, 2019. "Discrete Choice under Oaths," Post-Print halshs-02136103, HAL.
    26. Uri Gneezy & Agne Kajackaite & Joel Sobel, 2018. "Lying Aversion and the Size of the Lie," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(2), pages 419-453, February.
    27. Raúl López-Pérez & Eli Spiegelman, 2013. "Why do people tell the truth? Experimental evidence for pure lie aversion," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 16(3), pages 233-247, September.
    28. Koessler, Ann-Kathrin & Torgler, Benno & Feld, Lars P. & Frey, Bruno S., 2019. "Commitment to pay taxes: Results from field and laboratory experiments," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 78-98.
    29. Boudewijn Bruin, 2016. "Pledging Integrity: Oaths as Forms of Business Ethics Management," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 136(1), pages 23-42, June.
    30. Uri Gneezy, 2005. "Deception: The Role of Consequences," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 384-394, March.
    31. Kemper, Nathan & Nayga, Rodolfo M. Jr. & Popp, Jennie & Bazzani, Claudia, 2016. "The Effects of Honesty Oath and Consequentiality in Choice Experiments," 2016 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Boston, Massachusetts 235381, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    32. Tobias Beck, 2020. "Lying and Mistrust in the Continuous Deception Game," MAGKS Papers on Economics 202030, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    33. Tobias Beck & Christoph Bühren & Björn Frank & Elina Khachatryan, 2020. "Can Honesty Oaths, Peer Interaction, or Monitoring Mitigate Lying?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 163(3), pages 467-484, May.
    34. Gerald J. Pruckner & Rupert Sausgruber, 2013. "Honesty On The Streets: A Field Study On Newspaper Purchasing," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 661-679, June.
    35. Vincent Blok, 2013. "The Power of Speech Acts: Reflections on a Performative Concept of Ethical Oaths in Economics and Business," Review of Social Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 71(2), pages 187-208, June.
    36. Rosenthal, Robert W., 1981. "Games of perfect information, predatory pricing and the chain-store paradox," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 92-100, August.
    37. Ariel Rubinstein, 2007. "Instinctive and Cognitive Reasoning: Response Times Study," Levine's Bibliography 321307000000001011, UCLA Department of Economics.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sorravich Kingsuwankul & Chloe Tergiman & Marie Claire Villeval, 2023. "Why do oaths work? Image concerns and credibility in promise keeping," Working Papers hal-04209489, HAL.
    2. Jiang, Shuguang & Wei, Qian, 2022. "Confucian culture, moral reminder, and soft corruption," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    3. Brent J. Davis & Tarek Jaber‐Lopez, 2023. "Do voluntary commitment mechanisms improve welfare? The effect of mandatory and voluntary oaths in a social dilemma," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 75(2), pages 525-540, April.
    4. Akin, Zafer, 2022. "Playing the victim behavior: an experimental study," MPRA Paper 115532, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Tobias Beck, 2020. "Lying and Mistrust in the Continuous Deception Game," MAGKS Papers on Economics 202030, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    2. Jérôme Hergueux & Nicolas Jacquemet & Stéphane Luchini & Jason F. Shogren, 2022. "Leveraging the Honor Code: Public Goods Contributions under Oath," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 81(3), pages 591-616, March.
    3. Nicolas Jacquemet & Stéphane Luchini & Julie Rosaz & Jason F. Shogren, 2019. "Truth Telling Under Oath," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(1), pages 426-438, January.
    4. Tobias Beck & Christoph Bühren & Björn Frank & Elina Khachatryan, 2020. "Can Honesty Oaths, Peer Interaction, or Monitoring Mitigate Lying?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 163(3), pages 467-484, May.
    5. Sorravich Kingsuwankul & Chloe Tergiman & Marie Claire Villeval, 2023. "Why do oaths work? Image concerns and credibility in promise keeping," Working Papers hal-04209489, HAL.
    6. Marie Claire Villeval, 2019. "Comportements (non) éthiques et stratégies morales," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 70(6), pages 1021-1046.
    7. Cao, Qian & Li, Jianbiao & Niu, Xiaofei, 2022. "White lies in tournaments," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    8. Ann-Kathrin Koessler & Lionel Page & Uwe Dulleck, 2021. "Public cooperation statements," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 16(4), pages 747-767, October.
    9. Bhattacharya, Haimanti & Dugar, Subhasish, 2022. "Business norm versus norm-nudge as a contract-enforcing mechanism: Evidence from a real marketplace," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    10. Koessler, Ann-Kathrin & Page, Lionel & Dulleck, Uwe, 2015. "Promoting pro-social behavior with public statements of good intent," MPRA Paper 80072, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 24 May 2017.
    11. Dugar, Subhasish & Bhattacharya, Haimanti, 2017. "Fishy behavior: A field experiment on (dis)honesty in the marketplace," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 41-55.
    12. Jacquemet, N. & Luchini, S. & Malézieux, A. & Shogren, J.F., 2020. "Who’ll stop lying under oath? Empirical evidence from tax evasion games," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    13. Feess, Eberhard & Schilling, Thomas & Timofeyev, Yuriy, 2023. "Misreporting in teams with individual decision making: The impact of information and communication," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 209(C), pages 509-532.
    14. Khalmetski, Kiryl, 2019. "Evasion of guilt in expert advice," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 296-310.
    15. Khalmetski, Kiryl & Rockenbach, Bettina & Werner, Peter, 2017. "Evasive lying in strategic communication," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 59-72.
    16. Nicolas Jacquemet & Stéphane Luchini & J Rosaz & J F Shogren, 2021. "Can we commit future managers to honesty?," PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) halshs-03277342, HAL.
    17. Nicolas Jacquemet & Alexander James & Stéphane Luchini & James Murphy & Jason F. Shogren, 2019. "Lying and Shirking Under Oath," Working Papers 19-19, Chapman University, Economic Science Institute.
      • Nicolas Jacquemet & Alexander James & Stéphane Luchini & James J. Murphy & Jason F. Shogren, 2019. "Lying and Shirking Under Oath," Working Papers 2019-02, University of Alaska Anchorage, Department of Economics.
    18. Kiryl Khalmetski & Dirk Sliwka, 2019. "Disguising Lies—Image Concerns and Partial Lying in Cheating Games," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(4), pages 79-110, November.
    19. Koessler, Ann-Kathrin & Page, Lionel & Dulleck, Uwe, 2018. "Public Statements of Good Conduct Promote Pro-Social Behavior," EconStor Preprints 180669, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    20. Dugar, Subhasish & Mitra, Arnab & Shahriar, Quazi, 2019. "Deception: The role of uncertain consequences," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 1-18.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Honesty oath; Strategic deception; Truth telling; Size of the lie; Laboratory experiment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:soceco:v:94:y:2021:i:c:s2214804321000689. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/620175 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.