Society can have a strong influence on how honest we are

Posted on March 12, 2016

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The study 'Intrinsic Honesty and the Prevalence of Rule Violations across Societies' found that people from more corrupt societies were likely to be more dishonest than those from societies where rule-breaking is frowned upon.

The experiment was carried out in 23 different countries, which differ strongly in levels of corruption. More than 2,500 people were tested to see how honest they would be in a situation where people could lie without being found out.

In the experiment, people were seated in an isolated booth and asked to roll a die twice. They were then asked to report back on what the first number was. They were told that they would receive a cash incentive depending on how high the number was that they rolled.

There were interesting differences across countries: people from societies where there was high levels of corruption - political fraud, political embezzlement and cheating etc., reported higher die rolls (that is, they were more dishonest) than people in a society, such as the UK, where there is little corruption.

People benchmark their dishonesty with what they think is justifiable in their society and what they are surrounded by in their daily lives. A psychological theory for these results is that people want to maintain a positive self-image of being an honest person, and therefore will cheat only a little to their advantage, which allows them to maintain their positive self-image.


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Source material from University of Nottingham