Lying in groups: Team incentives and social learning

This study introduces a new experimental framework to examine how team incentives and social learning contribute to dishonest behavior within groups. The experimental framework can be applied to measure dishonesty both at the aggregate and individual levels, and it can be used to study the spread of unethical behavior under various scenarios. The analytical results show that both social learning and team incentives can significantly promote dishonesty, independently or in combination. When both social learning and team incentives are present, they can interact and amplify each other's impact on promoting dishonesty. Moreover, we find that while both honesty and dishonesty are contagious, dishonest behavior is more readily imitated by individuals. This implies that social learning is self-serving, hence, moral standards are subject to being progressively undermined in the process of social learning, when there is no punishment on unethical behaviors. Furthermore, the analysis on round-to-round interactions show that social learning’s effect on dishonesty emerges gradually without team incentives. However, team incentives amplify and accelerate this effect, influencing behavior immediately.