IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/apeclt/v23y2016i16p1162-1167.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The victim matters – experimental evidence on lying, moral costs and moral cleansing

Author

Listed:
  • Lukas Meub
  • Till Proeger
  • Tim Schneider
  • Kilian Bizer

Abstract

In an experiment on moral cleansing with an endogenously manipulated moral self-image, we examine the role of the addressee of an immoral action. We find that cheating is highest and moral cleansing lowest when subjects cheat at the expense of the experimenter, while cheating is lowest and moral cleansing highest once cheating harms another participant. A subsequent measurement of subjects’ moral self-image supports our interpretation that the occurrence of moral cleansing crucially depends on the moral costs resulting from immoral actions directed at individuals in different roles. Our results can help to explain the different propensity to cheat and conduct moral cleansing when immoral actions harm either another person or representatives of organizations.

Suggested Citation

  • Lukas Meub & Till Proeger & Tim Schneider & Kilian Bizer, 2016. "The victim matters – experimental evidence on lying, moral costs and moral cleansing," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(16), pages 1162-1167, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:apeclt:v:23:y:2016:i:16:p:1162-1167
    DOI: 10.1080/13504851.2016.1139674
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/13504851.2016.1139674
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/13504851.2016.1139674?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.

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Sabrina Jeworrek & Joschka Waibel, 2021. "Unethical employee behavior against coworkers following unkind management treatment: An experimental analysis," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(5), pages 1220-1234, July.
    2. Kinnl, Klara & Möller, Jakob & Walter, Anna, 2023. "Borrowed Plumes:," Department of Economics Working Paper Series 345, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business.
    3. Hermann, Daniel & Ostermaier, Andreas, 2018. "Be close to me and I will be honest: How social distance influences honesty," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 340, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    4. Benistant, Julien & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2019. "Unethical behavior and group identity in contests," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 128-155.
    5. Schitter, Christian & Fleiß, Jürgen & Palan, Stefan, 2019. "To claim or not to claim: Anonymity, symmetric externalities and honesty," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 13-36.
    6. Barron, Kai & Stüber, Robert & van Veldhuizen, Roel, 2019. "Motivated motive selection in the lying-dictator game," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Economics of Change SP II 2019-303, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    7. Angelova, Vera & Tolksdorf, Michel, 2022. "Lying to Individuals versus Lying to Groups," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 350, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    8. Kinnl, Klara & Möller, Jakob & Walter, Anna, 2023. "Borrowed Plumes: The Gender Gap in Claiming Credit for Teamwork," Department for Strategy and Innovation Working Paper Series 01/2023, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business.
    9. Dilmaghani, Maryam & Tabvuma, Vurain, 2020. "Who pays for my lies? Comparing dishonesty at the expense of the experimenter and fellow subjects," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).
    10. Klara Kinnl & Jakob Möller & Anna Walter, 2023. "The Gender Gap in Claiming Credit for Teamwork," Department of Economics Working Papers wuwp345, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Department of Economics.
    11. Garbarino, Ellen & Slonim, Robert & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2019. "Loss aversion and lying behavior," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 158(C), pages 379-393.

    More about this item

    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:taf:apeclt:v:23:y:2016:i:16:p:1162-1167. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RAEL20 .

    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.