The Choice of Honesty: An Experiment Regarding Heterogeneous Responses to Situational Social Norms

Rajna GIBSON Brandon, Carmen Tanner and Alexander Wagner
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Rajna GIBSON Brandon: University of Geneva and Swiss Finance Institute
Carmen Tanner: University of Zurich

No 15-01, Swiss Finance Institute Research Paper Series from Swiss Finance Institute

Abstract: We conduct a laboratory experiment in which we expose participants to situational social norms of approval or disapproval of lying. While participants on average conform to the situational pressure, the results highlight important differences in individual reactions. Situational norms crowd out intrinsic preferences for truthfulness; conversely, these preferences support resistance against "bad" norms. The extent and direction of the interaction of individual characteristics with situational norms and with economic incentives shed light on why people act truthfully. Out of several possible explanations, self-signaling under situational pressure provides the most convincing account of the evidence from the experiment.

Keywords: Crowding-out; honesty; norm conformity; protected values; self-signaling; situational social norms. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 G02 G30 M14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 44 pages
Date: 2015-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp and nep-soc
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:chf:rpseri:rp1501

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