The Limited Role of Prosocial Behavior in Preventing Others from Being Dishonest

Honest individuals can strategically assume positions of power to prevent dishonest individuals from taking these positions. We conducted a laboratory experiment where participants were given two versions of an incentivized prediction task, one of which allowed cheating. Cheating on the task led a charity to lose endowed money. By introducing an auction for a limited spot in the cheating-enabling version, we examined whether honest participants bid in the auction to prevent dishonest participants from cheating and thereby harming the charity. We found that such behavior was rare, with at most 2.2% of participants engaging in it. Furthermore, the size of the charity loss and the presence of information about cheating of others did not affect bidding in the auction and cheating in the task. The participants willing to pay for the cheating-enabling version of the task did so primarily for their own gain. The prosocial preferences of honest individuals are not strong enough to prevent dishonest individuals from seizing positions of power, and only a few honest individuals are prepared to combat dishonesty actively.