Do Happy People Cheat Less? A Field Experiment on Dishonesty

Erez Siniver

Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), 2021, vol. 91, issue C

Abstract: Results of an experimental study designed to examine the effect of happiness on dishonest behavior are reported and analyzed. Passersby on the streets of Tel Aviv were asked to answer the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire (OHQ), which contains 29 multiple-choice questions for measuring Subjective Well-Being (SWB). Each question is answered according to a uniform six-point Likert scale. After filling out the questionnaire, they were invited to perform the Fischbacher and Follmi-Heusi (2013)’s die-under-the-cup (DUTC) task, which incentivizes dishonest behavior. Past research has found a positive relationship between a person's level of honesty and their reported SWB. However, that result is based entirely on a subject's responses to a direct-question survey that simply asks whether he behaves ethically. The present study examines the relationship between dishonest behavior and SWB based on experimental data. Happiness was found to be positively correlated with dishonest behavior, implying that happy people cheat more than unhappy people. A possible explanation for this unexpected result is that happiness may provide the cognitive flexibility necessary to reframe and rationalize dishonest acts. This may pave the way for the commission of dishonest acts by altering how people evaluate the moral implications of their behavior.

Keywords: Happiness; Subjective Well-Being; Ethics; Dishonesty; Lying; Die-Under-the-Cup Task (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 C92 C93 D63 I31 K42 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:soceco:v:91:y:2021:i:c:s2214804320307011

DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2020.101658

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