Pre-planning and the Continuation of Dishonest Behavior: An Experiment

We examine experimentally whether the ability to pre-plan one's action may reduce the possible inter-temporal spillover effect. We implemented two treatments where either the subjects were informed ex-ante that they would have two subsequent opportunities to tell a lie for some monetary gain, or they were informed about the decision making in each stage just before the stage started. We find that when it was not possible to pre-plan, repeated opportunities to tell a lie resulted in subjects telling a lie even for a smaller monetary gain, i.e., getting more vulnerable to a temptation to behave dishonestly for profit. However, when preplanning was feasible, the proportion of subjects telling a lie was relatively high in the first stage, and then it went down in the subsequent opportunity. We argue that the feasibility of preplanning invites a compensatory, instead of consistent, action, and thus induces more dishonest responses in the first stage and fewer in the second. Overall - considering both stages - more subjects told lies when they had had a chance to pre-plan.