Ways to measure honesty: A new experiment and two questionnaires

David Hugh-Jones

No 2015-02, University of East Anglia School of Economics Working Paper Series from School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK.

Abstract: I report on the validity of different measures of honest behaviour. Subjects from 15 countries took part in two web-based experiments: a coin flip with a reward for reporting "heads", and a quiz with the possibility of cheating. Participants also answered questions on moral attitudes, and on unethical real world behaviour. Honesty in the two experiments was correlated, and correlated with self-reports of behaviour. Answers to the attitudes questions did not correlate with the experimental measures or self-reported behaviour. The quiz experiment provides a useful way to measure individual honesty in an online setting.

Keywords: honesty; lying; experiment; questionnaire (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C42 C93 D82 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-08-15
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-evo, nep-exp and nep-soc
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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