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Experimental evidence on the transmission of honesty and dishonesty: A stairway to heaven and a highway to hell

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  • Colzani, Paola
  • Michailidou, Georgia
  • Santos-Pinto, Luis

Abstract

Various theories of social behavior propose that individuals condition actions that involve a moral value by following each other’s behavior. The theoretical and experimental instruments employed to evaluate this conditioning often focus only on the diffusion of actions with negative moral value (e.g., dishonesty, norm violation, tax evasion). In this paper, we develop and execute a laboratory experiment to study the diffusion of actions with both, positive and negative moral values. We use a lying paradigm and introduce a novel methodology operationalizing beliefs as intention proxies to study the switch between honesty and dishonesty in simultaneous and sequential move sequences. The results indicate asymmetries; while lying is strongly contagious, truth-telling is weakly so.

Suggested Citation

  • Colzani, Paola & Michailidou, Georgia & Santos-Pinto, Luis, 2023. "Experimental evidence on the transmission of honesty and dishonesty: A stairway to heaven and a highway to hell," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 231(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:231:y:2023:i:c:s0165176523002823
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2023.111257
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Despoina Alempaki & Valeria Burdea & Daniel Read, 2023. "Deceptive Communication: Direct Lies vs. Ignorance, Partial-Truth and Silence," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 444, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Lying; Truth-telling; Moral behavior; Conditional behavior; Laboratory experiment; Die-rolling paradigm;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C90 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - General
    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior
    • D90 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - General

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