Truth Telling Under Oath

Nicolas Jacquemet (), Stéphane Luchini (), Julie Rosaz () and Jason Shogren
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Stéphane Luchini: GREQAM, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, Aix-Marseille University, CNRS, EHESS, Centrale Marseille, 13205 Marseille Cedex 1, France
Julie Rosaz: CEE-M (University Montpellier, CNRS, INRA, Montpellier SupAgro), Montpellier, France

Management Science, 2019, vol. 65, issue 1, 426-438

Abstract: Oath taking for senior executives has been promoted as a means to enhance honesty within and toward organizations. Herein we explore whether people who voluntarily sign a solemn truth-telling oath are more committed to sincere behavior when offered the chance to lie. We design an experiment to test how the oath affects truth telling in two contexts: a neutral context replicating the typical experiment in the literature, and a “loaded” context in which we remind subjects that “a lie is a lie.” We consider four payoff configurations, with differential monetary incentives to lie, implemented as within-subjects treatment variables. The results are reinforced by robustness investigations in which each subject made only one lying decision. Our results show that the oath reduces lying, especially in the loaded environment—falsehoods are reduced by 50%. The oath, however, has a weaker effect on lying in the neutral environment. The oath did affect decision times in all instances: the average person takes significantly more time deciding whether to lie under oath.

Keywords: deception; lies; truth-telling oath; laboratory experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (31)

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https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2017.2892 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Truth Telling Under Oath (2019)
Working Paper: Truth Telling Under Oath (2019)
Working Paper: Truth Telling Under Oath (2019)
Working Paper: Truth-telling under Oath (2018)
Working Paper: Truth-telling under Oath (2018)
Working Paper: Truth-telling under Oath (2015)
Working Paper: Truth-telling under Oath (2015)
Working Paper: Truth-telling under Oath (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:65:y:2019:i:1:p:426-438

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