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Would you lie about your mother's birthday? A new online dishonesty experiment

Victor von Loessl, Christoph Bühren, Björn Frank, Heike Wetzel and Elina Wiederhold

Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), 2024, vol. 109, issue C

Abstract: We ask a representative sample of German household decision-makers to enter their mother's birthday, with potential payments depending on the month and the day they state. Thus, we create an incentive to lie. Compared to the die-under-the-cup experiment, our alternative has a lower probability that the income-maximizing outcome is true. Furthermore, it is better suited for online surveys and samples in which gambling is socially stigmatized. We conduct different variations of this game to crystalize design recommendations for researchers interested in our tool. Participants lied to receive higher payoffs, but only with real monetary incentives and only to a relatively small extent. Our results are largely insensitive to several design elements that we vary, such as the probability of being paid and the magnitude of the payoffs.

Keywords: Dishonesty; Lying; Survey experiment; Die-under-the-cup alternative (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C99 D63 D91 H26 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:soceco:v:109:y:2024:i:c:s2214804324000314

DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2024.102191

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Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics) is currently edited by Pablo Brañas Garza

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