Let’s be honest: A review of experimental evidence of honesty and truth-telling

Stephen Mark Rosenbaum, Stephan Billinger and Nils Stieglitz

Journal of Economic Psychology, 2014, vol. 45, issue C, 181-196

Abstract: Honesty toward strangers can be considered an important norm of any given society. However, despite burgeoning interest in honesty among experimenters, the heterogeneous nature of prior experimental designs obfuscates our understanding of this important topic. The present review of 63 economic and psychological experiments constitutes the first attempt to compare findings across a range of honesty experiments. Our findings across experimental designs suggest the robust presence of unconditional cheaters and non-cheaters, with the honesty of the remaining individuals being particularly susceptible to monitoring and intrinsic lying costs.

Keywords: Honesty; Truth-telling; Dishonesty; Field experiments; Lab experiments (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 C92 C93 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (120)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:joepsy:v:45:y:2014:i:c:p:181-196

DOI: 10.1016/j.joep.2014.10.002

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