IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/gms/wpaper/1039.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Perceptions, Intentions, and Cheating

Author

Listed:
  • Li Hao

    (Department of Economics, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville)

  • Daniel Houser

    (Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science and Department of Economics, George Mason University)

Abstract

We report data from a laboratory experiment demonstrating that cheating is significantly deterred when a possible intent to cheat must be revealed before, rather than after, a potentially dishonest act. Further, data from independent evaluators suggests a reason: the same action is more likely to be perceived as dishonest when cheating could have been planned, as compared to cases when it seems simply impulsive. Overall, we find the vast majority of participants prefer to appear honest, but only a minority prefers actually to be honest. Finally, we conduct a type-classification analysis that implies that after establishing an honest appearance people cheat to the greatest extent possible. It follows that the “incomplete cheating†behavior frequently reported in the literature may be due more to a preference for maintaining an honest appearance than an intrinsic aversion to cheating. Length: 43

Suggested Citation

  • Li Hao & Daniel Houser, 2013. "Perceptions, Intentions, and Cheating," Working Papers 1039, George Mason University, Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science, revised Feb 2013.
    • Handle: RePEc:gms:wpaper:1039
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.gmu.edu/schools/chss/economics/icesworkingpapers.gmu.edu/pdf/1039.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Houser, Daniel & Winter, Joachim, 2004. "How Do Behavioral Assumptions Affect Structural Inference? Evidence from a Laboratory Experiment," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 22(1), pages 64-79, January.
    2. Charness, Gary & Dufwenberg, Martin, 2003. "Promises & Partnership," Research Papers in Economics 2003:3, Stockholm University, Department of Economics.
    3. Steffen Andersen & John Fountain & Glenn Harrison & E. Rutström, 2014. "Estimating subjective probabilities," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 48(3), pages 207-229, June.
    4. Stefano DellaVigna & John A. List & Ulrike Malmendier, 2012. "Testing for Altruism and Social Pressure in Charitable Giving," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(1), pages 1-56.
    5. 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.
    6. Dan Ariely & Anat Bracha & Stephan Meier, 2009. "Doing Good or Doing Well? Image Motivation and Monetary Incentives in Behaving Prosocially," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(1), pages 544-555, March.
    7. Tore Ellingsen & Magnus Johannesson, 2004. "Promises, Threats and Fairness," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(495), pages 397-420, April.
    8. Uri Gneezy, 2005. "Deception: The Role of Consequences," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 384-394, March.
    9. Anderson, Christopher M. & Putterman, Louis, 2006. "Do non-strategic sanctions obey the law of demand? The demand for punishment in the voluntary contribution mechanism," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 1-24, January.
    10. Tore Ellingsen & Magnus Johannesson & Jannie Lilja & Henrik Zetterqvist, 2009. "Trust and Truth," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(534), pages 252-276, January.
      • Tore Ellingsen & Magnus Johannesson & Jannie Lilja & Henrik Zetterqvist, 2009. "Trust and Truth," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(534), pages 252-276, January.
    11. Sanchez-Pages, Santiago & Vorsatz, Marc, 2007. "An experimental study of truth-telling in a sender-receiver game," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 86-112, October.
    12. 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.
    13. Edi Karni, 2009. "A Mechanism for Eliciting Probabilities," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(2), pages 603-606, March.
    14. Charles Bellemare & Sabine Kröger & Arthur van Soest, 2008. "Measuring Inequity Aversion in a Heterogeneous Population Using Experimental Decisions and Subjective Probabilities," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 76(4), pages 815-839, July.
    15. Schweitzer, Maurice E. & Hershey, John C. & Bradlow, Eric T., 2006. "Promises and lies: Restoring violated trust," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 101(1), pages 1-19, September.
    16. Roland Benabou & Jean Tirole, 2004. "Willpower and Personal Rules," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(4), pages 848-886, August.
    17. Rajna Gibson & Carmen Tanner & Alexander F. Wagner, 2013. "Preferences for Truthfulness: Heterogeneity among and within Individuals," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(1), pages 532-548, February.
    18. Gary Charness & Martin Dufwenberg, 2006. "Promises and Partnership," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(6), pages 1579-1601, November.
    19. Akerlof, George A, 1983. "Loyalty Filters," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 73(1), pages 54-63, March.
    20. Holt, Debra J., 1999. "An Empirical Model of Strategic Choice with an Application to Coordination Games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 86-105, April.
    21. Ting Jiang, 2012. "The Mind Game: Invisible Cheating and Inferable Intentions," LICOS Discussion Papers 30912, LICOS - Centre for Institutions and Economic Performance, KU Leuven.
    22. Houser, Daniel & Vetter, Stefan & Winter, Joachim, 2012. "Fairness and cheating," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(8), pages 1645-1655.
    23. Santiago Sánchez-Pagés & Marc Vorsatz, 2009. "Enjoy the silence: an experiment on truth-telling," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 12(2), pages 220-241, June.
    24. Bucciol, Alessandro & Piovesan, Marco, 2011. "Luck or cheating? A field experiment on honesty with children," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 73-78, February.
    25. Jiang, Ting, 2013. "Cheating in mind games: The subtlety of rules matters," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 328-336.
    26. Yaw Nyarko & Andrew Schotter, 2002. "An Experimental Study of Belief Learning Using Elicited Beliefs," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(3), pages 971-1005, May.
    27. James Andreoni & B. Douglas Bernheim, 2009. "Social Image and the 50-50 Norm: A Theoretical and Experimental Analysis of Audience Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(5), pages 1607-1636, September.
    28. Li Hao & Daniel Houser, 2012. "Belief elicitation in the presence of naïve respondents: An experimental study," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 44(2), pages 161-180, April.
    29. repec:feb:framed:0087 is not listed on IDEAS
    30. Sjaak Hurkens & Navin Kartik, 2009. "Would I lie to you? On social preferences and lying aversion," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 12(2), pages 180-192, June.
    31. Daniel Houser & Erte Xiao, 2011. "Classification of natural language messages using a coordination game," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 14(1), pages 1-14, March.
    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. Reuben, Ernesto & Traxler, Christian & van Winden, Frans, 2015. "Advocacy and political convergence under preference uncertainty," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 16-36.
    2. Bolton, Gary & Dimant, Eugen & Schmidt, Ulrich, 2021. "Observability and social image: On the robustness and fragility of reciprocity," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 191(C), pages 946-964.
    3. Daniel Houser & John List & Marco Piovesan & Anya Samek & Joachim Winter, 2015. "On the Origins of Dishonesty: from Parents to Children," Artefactual Field Experiments 00449, The Field Experiments Website.
    4. Bradley J. Ruffle & Yossef Tobol, 2017. "Clever enough to tell the truth," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 20(1), pages 130-155, March.
    5. Dimant, Eugen & van Kleef, Gerben A. & Shalvi, Shaul, 2020. "Requiem for a Nudge: Framing effects in nudging honesty," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 247-266.
    6. Houser, Daniel & List, John A. & Piovesan, Marco & Samek, Anya & Winter, Joachim, 2016. "Dishonesty: From parents to children," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 242-254.
    7. Zhixin Dai & Fabio Galeotti & Marie Claire Villeval, 2018. "Cheating in the Lab Predicts Fraud in the Field: An Experiment in Public Transportation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(3), pages 1081-1100, March.
    8. Pate, Jennifer, 2018. "Temptation and cheating behavior: Experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 135-148.
    9. Hongli Feng & Tong Wang & David A. Hennessy & Gaurav Arora, 2022. "Over-Perception about Land Use Changes: Assessing Empirical Evidence and Linkage with Decisions and Motivated Beliefs," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 98(2), pages 254-273.
    10. Johannes Abeler & Daniele Nosenzo & Collin Raymond, 2019. "Preferences for Truth‐Telling," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 87(4), pages 1115-1153, July.
    11. Pamela R. Murphy & Michael Wynes & Till‐Arne Hahn & Patricia G. Devine, 2020. "Why Are People Honest? Internal and External Motivations to Report Honestly†," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 37(2), pages 945-981, June.
    12. Mary L. Rigdon & Alexander P. D'Esterre, 2015. "The effects of competition on the nature of cheating behavior," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 81(4), pages 1012-1024, April.
    13. Ruffle, Bradley J. & Tobol, Yossef, 2014. "Honest on Mondays: Honesty and the temporal separation between decisions and payoffs," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 126-135.
    14. Maggioni, Mario A. & Rossignoli, Domenico, 2020. "Clever little lies: Math performance and cheating in primary schools in Congo," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 380-400.
    15. Catrine Jacobsen & Toke Reinholt Fosgaard & David Pascual†Ezama, 2018. "Why Do We Lie? A Practical Guide To The Dishonesty Literature," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(2), pages 357-387, April.
    16. Jacobsen, Catrine & Piovesan, Marco, 2016. "Tax me if you can: An artifactual field experiment on dishonesty," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 7-14.
    17. Christian Schitter & Jürgen Fleiß & Stefan Palan, 2017. "To claim or not to claim: Anonymity, reciprocal externalities and honesty," Working Paper Series, Social and Economic Sciences 2017-01, Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences, Karl-Franzens-University Graz.
    18. Gary Charness & Celia Blanco-Jimenez & Lara Ezquerra & Ismael Rodriguez-Lara, 2019. "Cheating, incentives, and money manipulation," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 22(1), pages 155-177, March.
    19. Claire Mouminoux, 2023. "Can misfortune lead to dishonesty?," Rationality and Society, , vol. 35(3), pages 293-310, August.
    20. Denvil Duncan & Danyang Li, 2018. "Liar Liar: Experimental Evidence of the Effect of Confirmation‐Reports on Dishonesty," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 84(3), pages 742-770, January.

    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. Li Hao & Daniel Houser, 2011. "Honest Lies," Working Papers 1021, George Mason University, Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science.
    2. Reuben, Ernesto & Stephenson, Matt, 2013. "Nobody likes a rat: On the willingness to report lies and the consequences thereof," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 384-391.
    3. Behnk, Sascha & Barreda-Tarrazona, Iván & García-Gallego, Aurora, 2014. "The role of ex post transparency in information transmission—An experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 45-64.
    4. Utikal, Verena & Fischbacher, Urs, 2013. "Disadvantageous lies in individual decisions," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 108-111.
    5. 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.
    6. Xiao, Erte, 2013. "Profit-seeking punishment corrupts norm obedience," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 321-344.
    7. Dugar, Subhasish & Mitra, Arnab & Shahriar, Quazi, 2019. "Deception: The role of uncertain consequences," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 1-18.
    8. Alain Cohn & Tobias Gesche & Michel André Maréchal, 2022. "Honesty in the Digital Age," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(2), pages 827-845, February.
    9. Jeroen Ven & Marie Claire Villeval, 2015. "Dishonesty under scrutiny," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 1(1), pages 86-99, July.
    10. Khalmetski, Kiryl & Rockenbach, Bettina & Werner, Peter, 2017. "Evasive lying in strategic communication," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 59-72.
    11. Johannes Abeler & Daniele Nosenzo & Collin Raymond, 2019. "Preferences for Truth‐Telling," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 87(4), pages 1115-1153, July.
    12. Zhixin Dai & Fabio Galeotti & Marie Claire Villeval, 2018. "Cheating in the Lab Predicts Fraud in the Field: An Experiment in Public Transportation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(3), pages 1081-1100, March.
    13. Friesen, Lana & Gangadharan, Lata, 2013. "Designing self-reporting regimes to encourage truth telling: An experimental study," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 90-102.
    14. 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).
    15. Gawn, Glynis & Innes, Robert, 2018. "Language and lies," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 167-176.
    16. Reuben, Ernesto & Stephenson, Matthew, 2012. "Nobody Likes a Rat: On the Willingness and Consequences of Reporting Lies," IZA Discussion Papers 6998, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Sascha Behnk & Iván Barreda-Tarrazona & Aurora García-Gallego, 2017. "An experimental test of reporting systems for deception," Working Papers 2017/11, Economics Department, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón (Spain).
    18. Behnk, Sascha & Barreda-Tarrazona, Iván & García-Gallego, Aurora, 2019. "Deception and reputation – An experimental test of reporting systems," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 37-58.
    19. Kajackaite, Agne & Gneezy, Uri, 2017. "Incentives and cheating," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 433-444.
    20. Marie Claire Villeval, 2019. "Comportements (non) éthiques et stratégies morales," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 70(6), pages 1021-1046.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    cheating; honest appearance; partial cheating; experimental design;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:gms:wpaper:1039. 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: Shams Bahabib (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/icgmuus.html .

    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.