Do truth-telling oaths improve honesty in crowd-working?

Nicolas Jacquemet (), Alexander James, Stéphane Luchini (), James Murphy and Jason Shogren
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Stéphane Luchini: AMSE - Aix-Marseille Sciences Economiques - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - AMU - Aix Marseille Université - ECM - École Centrale de Marseille - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) from HAL

Abstract: This study explores whether an oath to honesty can reduce both shirking and lying among crowd-sourced internet workers. Using a classic coin-flip experiment, we first confirm that a substantial majority of Mechanical Turk workers both shirk and lie when reporting the number of heads flipped. We then demonstrate that lying can be reduced by first asking each worker to swear voluntarily on his or her honor to tell the truth in subsequent economic decisions. Even in this online, purely anonymous environment, the oath significantly reduced the percent of subjects telling "big" lies (by roughly 27%), but did not affect shirking. We also explore whether a truth-telling oath can be used as a screening device if implemented after decisions have been made. Conditional on flipping response, MTurk shirkers and workers who lied were significantly less likely to agree to an ex-post honesty oath. Our results suggest oaths may help elicit more truthful behavior, even in online crowd-sourced environments

Keywords: Experimental Economics; Honesty; Solemn Oath; Mechanical Turk; Lying; Shirking (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp and nep-pay
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-03131518v1
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)

Published in PLoS ONE, 2021, 16, ⟨10.1371/journal.pone.0244958⟩

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Journal Article: Do truth-telling oaths improve honesty in crowd-working? (2021)
Working Paper: Do truth-telling oaths improve honesty in crowd-working? (2021)
Working Paper: Do truth-telling oaths improve honesty in crowd-working? (2021)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:pseptp:hal-03131518

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0244958

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