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Measurement of the determinants of socially undesirable behaviors, such as dishonesty, are complicated and obscured by social desirability biases. To circumvent these biases, we used connectome-based predictive modeling (CPM) on resting state functional connectivity patterns in combination with a novel task which inconspicuously measures voluntary cheating to gain access to the neurocognitive determinants of (dis)honesty. Specifically, we investigated whether task-independent neural patterns within the brain at rest could be used to predict a propensity for (dis)honest behavior. Our analyses revealed that functional connectivity, especially between brain networks linked to self-referential thinking (vmPFC, temporal poles, and PCC) and reward processing (caudate nucleus), reliably correlates, in an independent sample, with participants’ propensity to cheat. Participants who cheated the most also scored highest on several self-report measures of impulsivity which underscores the generalizability of our results. Notably, when comparing neural and self-report measures, the neural measures were found to be more important in predicting cheating propensity.

Three preregistered studies examined whether 5-year-old children cheat consistently or remain honest across multiple math tests. We observed high consistency in both honesty and cheating. All children who cheated on the first test continued cheating on subsequent tests, with shorter cheating latencies over time. In contrast, 77% of initially honest children maintained honesty despite repeated failure to complete the tests successfully. A brief integrity intervention helped initially honest children remain honest but failed to dissuade initially cheating children from cheating. These findings demonstrate that cheating emerges early and persists strongly in young children, underscoring the importance of early prevention efforts. They also suggest that bolstering honesty from the start may be more effective than attempting to remedy cheating after it has occurred. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: Our research examines whether 5-year-old children, once they have started cheating, will continue to do so consistently. We also investigate whether 5-year-old children who are initially honest will continue to be honest subsequently. We discovered high consistency in both honesty and cheating among 5-year-old children. Almost all the children who initially cheated continued this behavior, while those who were honest stayed honest. A brief integrity-boosting intervention successfully helped 5-year-old children maintain their honesty. However, the same intervention failed to deter cheaters from cheating again. These findings underscore the importance of implementing integrity intervention as early as possible, potentially before children have had their first experience of cheating., (© 2024 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

The question of whether and, if so, how creativity and unethical behavior such as dishonesty are related to each other has been addressed in multiple studies, with mixed results overall. The aim of this Registered Report is to shed further light on this issue. We first present a meta-analysis on the relation between creativity and dishonesty comprising the samples from a pre-registered multi-lab study (on a different topic), which indicated no relation between the constructs in question (k = 19, N = 2,154, rp =.02). Next, we examined the relation between creativity and dishonesty in a study (N = 1,152), in which we addressed several limitations of previous research. Specifically, we examined relations between comprehensively assessed creativity and dishonesty using subjective and objective indicators for both constructs. We found mixed results concerning the relation between creativity and dishonesty. In the majority of the confirmatory statistical tests, subjective creativity was positively related, whereas objective creativity was negatively related to dishonesty in the mind game. However, in exploratory analyses, we found that neither subjective nor objective creativity was related to dishonesty in the second dishonesty measure, the sender–receiver game. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dishonesty has an enormous impact on all aspects of our society. It causes huge financial losses annually, so efforts to understand dishonest behavior have increased. However, one of the main questions yet to be answered is whether dishonesty varies according to gender. Do men behave more dishonestly than women? Although the literature points to a yes, there is still no consensus on the matter. We examined gender differences in dishonesty in a large sample (N = 2,452) using a model recently developed by Pascual-Ezama et al. It is a variation of the classic die-under-the-cup task. It enabled us to identify individual dishonesty profiles and look for gender differences between them. The results show that the men were more prone to behave dishonestly than women with small rewards, who seem satisfied without maximizing the potential reward. However, the differences vanished when there was no reward. The men also showed more radical dishonest behavior than the women. The results also suggest that gender differences might be shaped by factors other than gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a supply chain coordinated by a revenue sharing contract, under-reporting of sales revenue has been a common practice amongst retailers who always have private information about the market demand. In this article, we aim to design a mechanism to mitigate this problem. One may design a contract to elicit truthful information from the retailer while maximizing supplier’s payoff. However, we find that such contracts fail to coordinate the supply chain, when the market demand is high. Hence, we study an audit-based revenue sharing contract. First, we design a laboratory experiment to investigate the impact of retailer’s decisions on the subsequent choices made by the supplier. We find that the audit probability chosen by the supplier increases with the gap between retailer’s order quantity and the sales reported by the retailer. We follow this up with a simulation experiment which incorporates the findings of our laboratory experiment. Audit cost and the penalty announced by the supplier for not reporting true sales turned out to be important in making decisions for both the players. We also find the threshold auditing cost beyond which auditing is not economically viable for the supplier.

In the light of the potential negative consequences of dishonest behaviors for individuals and societies, researchers from different disciplines have aimed to investigate situation and person factors shaping the occurrence and extent of such behaviors. The present study investigates the roles of a situation factor, the baseline probability of observing a favorable outcome, and a person factor, trait Honesty-Humility from the HEXACO Model of Personality, in shaping dishonest behavior. Next to main effects, a person-situation interaction between these factors was tested. Across three studies with 5,297 participants overall, we find that a higher baseline probability of observing a favorable outcome and lower levels in Honesty-Humility are linked to more dishonest behavior, whereas there was no strong evidence for an interaction between these factors. By testing the assumed effects in two different cheating paradigms, this study additionally allows to disentangle previously found effects of (a) the distance between an observed and the favorable outcome and (b) the baseline probability of observing a favorable outcome.

ABSTRACT This research aimed to identify the factors that influence people’s behavior with regard to tax evasion practices in Brazil based on an analysis of the internal and external rewards. The study analyzes internal and external rewards as a determining factor of tax evasion, unlike other studies that have focused on analyzing economic and social factors. The topic is addressed from a contemporary perspective, based on a behavioral analysis of economic and social factors. The paper contributes with its conceptual refinement and assumptions that may strengthen the foundations for studying the factors that influence tax evasion. The data collection was carried out by means of a quasi-experiment followed by the application of a questionnaire, in the period from November of 2016 to September of 2017, in loco, with 800 data collection instruments in all the geographic regions of the country, 598 of which were validated. Measures were adopted to ensure the content, criteria, and construct validities. The reliability test resulted in a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.63 and the composite reliability was higher than 0.60. The data were analyzed based on descriptive statistics and using the binary logistic regression model. The results of this research illustrate, by means of the logistic regression analysis using a univariate approach, that external rewards - punishment - and internal rewards - self-concept, social norms, fiscal transparency, and cost of compliance - influence people’s dishonest behavior with regards to tax evasion practices in the sample studied. The study analyzes tax evasion based on an interdisciplinary approach, cooperating with the public administration in determining actions that can discourage evasion, by implementing strategies that include behavioral factors relating to the taxpayer.

Abstract Purpose The aim of this study is to determine the characteristics of medical faculty students about violations of academic integrity. Method From the whole population of the 572 students of the Muğla Sıtkı Koçman University Faculty of Medicine, 271 students participated voluntarily in a descriptive cross-sectional survey. Descriptive data were recorded in the survey and a five-point Likert-type instrument, namely the Tendency towards Academic Dishonesty Scale, was used as the data collection tool in the study. The scale included 22 items’ means that are considered to evaluate “Tendency towards academic dishonesty” (TTAD) score. In addition, four subscales, namely “Tendency towards cheating”, “Dishonesty in works such as assignments and projects”, “Tendency towards dishonesty in research and reporting processes” and “Tendency towards citation dishonesty” scores were evaluated separately. Results Of the participants, 138 (53.3%) were male. TTAD scores were 2.15 ± 0.61, showing a slight tendency towards academic dishonesty, according to the scale. TTAD scores and standard deviations (SD) were 2.26 ± 0.65 and 2.04 ± 0.55 for men and women, respectively (P = 0.005). There was no difference in the TTAD scores for students whether they had read the ethics code. Significant differences were observed in the TTAD scores for students with gender, different academic achievements and in different academic years. However, when multivariate analysis was performed, the significance shown in the results disappeared. Conclusion In our study, a slight tendency to academic dishonesty was found for medical faculty students and there were no differences between all of the recorded individual factors of students.

Dishonesty has an enormous impact on all aspects of our society. It causes huge financial losses annually, so efforts to understand dishonest behavior have increased. However, one of the main questions yet to be answered is whether dishonesty varies according to gender. Do men behave more dishonestly than women? Although the literature points to a yes, there is still no consensus on the matter. We examined gender differences in dishonesty in a large sample (N = 2,452) using a model recently developed by Pascual-Ezama et al. It is a variation of the classic die-under-the-cup task. It enabled us to identify individual dishonesty profiles and look for gender differences between them. The results show that the men were more prone to behave dishonestly than women with small rewards, who seem satisfied without maximizing the potential reward. However, the differences vanished when there was no reward. The men also showed more radical dishonest behavior than the women. The results also suggest that gender differences might be shaped by factors other than gender.

Academic dishonesty is prevalent and has unfortunately become normalized in post-secondary institutions worldwide. The COVID-19 pandemic more than two years ago led to an increase in cheating and confrontation of instructors with academic honesty. The main objective of this study was to create an explicative model according to the levels of morality, pragmatism, and gender. Researchers applied an online questionnaire to 735 anonymous university students. Analysis showed that participants were less honest in morality than in pragmatism, but the average value was very close for both dimensions. A substantial number of students with low and moderate levels of dishonesty were observed in both moral and pragmatic contexts. The initial hypothesis was partially validated, as the level of morality was associated with the level of pragmatism rather than gender, indicating a direct albeit moderate impact of pragmatism on morality. We confirmed the second hypothesis, showing the influence of gender and morality on the level of pragmatism. Participants suggested that English as a Foreign Language instructors should modify their approach, account for ethical considerations, offer extra classes, revise teaching and evaluation methods, and sanction students who cheat. Surprisingly, results show a slight tendency for lower honesty in morality compared to pragmatism. Despite honest behaviors, it is essential to address gender differences and promote academic honesty through education, policies, and a culture of honesty., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (© 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

Background: Investigating the effects of monetary incentives on dishonest behavior provides valuable insights into human integrity and ethical decision-making processes. This study is conducted through the lens of self-concept maintenance theory., Aim: The aim of this study is to examine the influence of different types of rewards (score-based vs. monetary) and their magnitude on dishonest behavior within a gender judgment task., Method: Using a quantitative experimental design, this study involved 116 participants who were randomly assigned to conditions that differed in reward type (score or money) and magnitude (10 yuan vs. 50 yuan). Dishonest behavior was assessed using a gender judgment task with mechanisms to simulate conditions conducive to planned cheating., Results: Results revealed significant differences in dishonesty rates between score and money conditions, with a higher proportion of dishonest participants observed in the score condition compared to the money condition. The timing of initial cheating was earlier in the score condition compared to the money condition. No significant differences were found in the proportion of dishonest participants, the cheating rate, or the timing of initial cheating across reward levels within either condition. The rate of cheating increased over time, suggesting a temporal dynamic in unethical decision making., Conclusion: The study demonstrates that the nature of rewards significantly influences the likelihood of dishonest behavior, with intangible score-based rewards facilitating rationalizations for dishonesty more readily than tangible financial incentives. These findings enrich the understanding of moral psychology by highlighting the complex interplay between reward types, ethical rationalization, and the dynamics of dishonest behavior., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024 Chen, Zhao, Li, Wu, and Yan.)

In recent years, marketing researchers have become increasingly interested in under- and overreporting. However, there are few suitable approaches to operationalize deviations from the truth, particularly in behavioral domains in which self-reports are usually the only viable method of choice to measure behavior or attitudes. An especially difficult situation arises if some people underreport while others overreport. This article proposes a Bayesian item response theory model to quantify under- and overreporting in surveys. The method utilizes within-person differences between answers obtained under direct questioning (no privacy protection) and randomized-response questioning (which ensures item-level privacy protection). This method has the important features of incorporating behavioral response-mode effects (e.g., privacy loss when switching from direct to randomized-response questioning, response-mode inertia effects) and allowing the direction of bias to differ across respondents. The authors provide an empirical application for excessive alcohol consumption involving 1,408 respondents from a commercial web panel. The results show that respondents are averse to decreases in privacy and that randomized response is less effective if respondents provide biased responses to earlier direct questions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the use of foreign languages affects individuals' dishonesty. We recruited native Chinese speakers who can speak English as a foreign language at universities in China, and they were randomly assigned to a native language (NL) or foreign language (FL) condition. Participants in each condition were required to finish the same tasks, in which they would benefit more from lying; the tasks were administered in either Chinese or English. We conducted one die-roll game in Study 1 and one cheap-talk sender-receiver game in Study 2. In both Study 1 and Study 2, we found that the proportion of lying was significantly lower in the FL condition than in the NL condition. Our results imply that the FL effect on dishonesty may be due to the cognitive load of communicating in a FL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cognitive control is crucially involved in making (dis)honest decisions. However, the precise nature of this role has been hotly debated. Is honesty an intuitive response, or is will power needed to override an intuitive inclination to cheat? A reconciliation of these conflicting views proposes that cognitive control enables dishonest participants to be honest, whereas it allows those who are generally honest to cheat. Thus, cognitive control does not promote (dis)honesty per se; it depends on one's moral default. In the present study, we tested this proposal using electroencephalograms in humans (males and females) in combination with an independent localizer (Stroop task) to mitigate the problem of reverse inference. Our analysis revealed that the neural signature evoked by cognitive control demands in the Stroop task can be used to estimate (dis) honest choices in an independent cheating task, providing converging evidence that cognitive control can indeed help honest participants to cheat, whereas it facilitates honesty for cheaters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Micah 7:1-6 represents the prophet's lamentation of the deficiency of moral value in a beloved nation. The oracle is a watershed in the Book of Micah that is aptly characterised by certain degrees of socio-economic and religious unfaithfulness, especially in privileged circumstances. The oracle unit (Mi 7:1-6) forms the darkest descriptions of degrees about the apparent moral wasteland of ancient Judah. The prophet's metaphors are used to describe the miserable moral morass of society form a kind of compendium with a progression of thoughts and coherence of moral depravity. This article underscores that when people and society live in dishonesty and corruption, the essentially integrated spiritual-ethical-community of health and prosperity that is expected to unfold in time of covenant fidelity will eventually be reduced to poverty and despair, where people hunt each other for survival. This article explores aspects of dishonesty and corruption in the Book of Micah that are pointers to the tragic situation, analyses the various descriptions of corruption in the oracle unit and consequently examines its ethical imperatives for community living. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To understand when, how, and why people cheat, the ability to detect cheating in a laboratory setting is crucial. However, commonly used paradigms are confronted with a conflict between allowing participants to believe they can cheat unnoticed and allowing experimenters to detect cheating. This project aimed to develop and establish a new nonverbal task to resolve this conflict. Study 1 and Study 2 developed a new unsolvable paradigm called the Difference Spotting Task. In Study 1, participants were incentivized to indicate whether they found any difference between a pair of pictures without being asked to point the difference(s) out, so they could overreport their performance to earn extra money. Unbeknownst to them, the pairs of pictures from half of the items were identical so that the task could not be solved without cheating. This paradigm allowed experimenters to detect cheating for each unsolvable item. Study 3 examined the validity of the Difference Spotting Task and demonstrated it as a valid tool to assess cheating. The Difference Spotting Task is nonverbal and thus applicable to populations across age, educational level, and culture. In this unsolvable task, participants feel safe in cheating, and experimenters can detect cheating at the item level. The task holds the potential to gain acceptance by many researchers and facilitate the investigation of the underlying processes of cheating behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We conducted focus groups with participants of a laboratory experiment on cheating with the aim to describe and structure participants' lived experience with the experiment and to compare their perceptions with experimenters' expectations. Our results suggest that participants often perceive both control and experimental conditions differently than intended by an experimenter. For example, the participants' decisions may be affected by feeling that they have to make a choice and do not have the opportunity to leave the experimental situation; by not believing in the anonymity of the experiment, by misunderstanding of random processes, or by other considerations other than the ethicality, for example by how entertaining or effortful is the chosen course of action. Our results underscore how difficult it is to achieve internal validity even in laboratory research. We conclude that the laboratory research of dishonesty would be improved by taking into account different perceived frames of experimental designs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

News of dishonest acts has become increasingly frequent, either in politics or daily life, as well as in cases of scandals involving corruption schemes in companies. To explain the dishonesty process, the Maneuver Margin Theory states that the individual performs internal "maneuvers", balancing the benefits that they will receive from the act and the self-concept that they have of themselves. Thereby, the objective of this research is to verify if there is more dishonesty when decisions are taken in the group when compared to the individual ones., For this, we did an experiment with 250 accounting students, in the state of Rio de Janeiro (average age = 23; 51% male; 49% female), where they should observe the die-rolling game and then report the number seen, for example, if the respondent reported that the dice presented the number 3 (three), they would earn 3 (three) points, although the number seen had been 1 (one). The participant's reward was linked to the number reported and not the number displayed, thus enabling them to be dishonest. Additionally, participants should be divided into two groups, one where they should enter the same number to receive. Otherwise, they would not win anything, and, in the other, where the combination of the same number was not necessary for remuneration. The experiment was programmed and conducted through software specially created for this research and the McNemar statistical test was performed to compare the two samples and to verify if individuals are more dishonest when making group decisions than individual ones. The results of the research corroborated that individuals are more dishonest when making decisions in a group (36% of participants) comparing to decisions taken individually (23%). These findings corroborate previous research and begin work on group dishonesty in Brazil, showing that individuals behave dishonestly when making group decisions rather than individually. The results presented in this paper reinforce the idea that, both in groups and individually, internal considerations are important when making decisions about dishonesty. This can help to understand the motivations that lead people to be dishonest as well as to seek mechanisms that are capable of inhibiting this behavior. For future researches, it is recommended that this same experiment be expanded not only in other courses but also in universities from different regions in order to provide an overview of the dishonest behavior of Brazilian students (future decision-makers in companies), especially when they interact in a group. Another suggestion is also to increase the number of people in each group so that the experiment might resemble the decisionmaking in real-life companies because, in real life, the number of people engaging in dishonest acts can vary greatly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the previous literature, only a few papers found better accuracy than a chance to detect dishonesty, even when more information and verbal cues (VCs) improve precision in detecting dishonesty. A new classification of dishonesty profiles has recently been published, allowing us to study if this low success rate happens for all people or if some people have higher predictive ability. This paper aims to examine if (dis)honest people can detect better/worse (un)ethical behavior of others. With this in mind, we designed one experiment using videos from one of the most popular TV shows in the UK where contestants make a (dis)honesty decision upon gaining or sharing a certain amount of money. Our participants from an online MTurk sample (N = 1,582) had to determine under different conditions whether the contestants would act in an (dis)honest way. Three significant results emerged from these two experiments. First, accuracy in detecting (dis)honesty is not different than chance, but submaximizers (compared to maximizers) and radical dishonest people (compare to non-radicals) are better at detecting honesty, while there is no difference in detecting dishonesty. Second, more information and VCs improve precision in detecting dishonesty, but honesty is better detected using only non-verbal cues (NVCs). Finally, a preconceived honesty bias improves specificity (honesty detection accuracy) and worsens sensitivity (dishonesty detection accuracy). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the use of foreign languages affects individuals’ dishonesty. We recruited native Chinese speakers who can speak English as a foreign language at universities in China, and they were randomly assigned to a native language (NL) or foreign language (FL) condition. Participants in each condition were required to finish the same tasks, in which they would benefit more from lying; the tasks were administered in either Chinese or English. We conducted one die-roll game in Study 1 and one cheap-talk sender-receiver game in Study 2. In both Study 1 and Study 2, we found that the proportion of lying was significantly lower in the FL condition than in the NL condition. Our results imply that the FL effect on dishonesty may be due to the cognitive load of communicating in a FL.

Micah 7:1–6 represents the prophet’s lamentation of the deficiency of moral value in a beloved nation. The oracle is a watershed in the Book of Micah that is aptly characterised by certain degrees of socio-economic and religious unfaithfulness, especially in privileged circumstances. The oracle unit (Mi 7:1–6) forms the darkest descriptions of degrees about the apparent moral wasteland of ancient Judah. The prophet’s metaphors are used to describe the miserable moral morass of society form a kind of compendium with a progression of thoughts and coherence of moral depravity. This article underscores that when people and society live in dishonesty and corruption, the essentially integrated spiritual-ethical-community of health and prosperity that is expected to unfold in time of covenant fidelity will eventually be reduced to poverty and despair, where people hunt each other for survival. This article explores aspects of dishonesty and corruption in the Book of Micah that are pointers to the tragic situation, analyses the various descriptions of corruption in the oracle unit and consequently examines its ethical imperatives for community living. Contribution: As a biblical, literary and theological interpretation of Micah’s oracle concerning ancient Judah’s moral morass, this article brings together moral insights that are potentially viable for making major contributions to the life of people and just social order in an economics of affluence, politics of oppression and corruption in societies.

According to the previous literature, only a few papers found better accuracy than a chance to detect dishonesty, even when more information and verbal cues (VCs) improve precision in detecting dishonesty. A new classification of dishonesty profiles has recently been published, allowing us to study if this low success rate happens for all people or if some people have higher predictive ability. This paper aims to examine if (dis)honest people can detect better/worse (un)ethical behavior of others. With this in mind, we designed one experiment using videos from one of the most popular TV shows in the UK where contestants make a (dis)honesty decision upon gaining or sharing a certain amount of money. Our participants from an online MTurk sample (N = 1,582) had to determine under different conditions whether the contestants would act in an (dis)honest way. Three significant results emerged from these two experiments. First, accuracy in detecting (dis)honesty is not different than chance, but submaximizers (compared to maximizers) and radical dishonest people (compare to non-radicals) are better at detecting honesty, while there is no difference in detecting dishonesty. Second, more information and VCs improve precision in detecting dishonesty, but honesty is better detected using only non-verbal cues (NVCs). Finally, a preconceived honesty bias improves specificity (honesty detection accuracy) and worsens sensitivity (dishonesty detection accuracy).

Situational factors affect human behavior, among which dishonesty. Previous studies linked darkness to an increase in immoral behavior. Simultaneously, ‘dark mode’ is increasingly offered in software. Accordingly it is important to investigate the moral behavioral effects of dark mode. In a high-powered, pre-registered, and economically incentivized experiment, users of ‘dark’ and ‘light’ user interfaces were compared on honesty. Results showed no general effect of dark mode on honesty. However, dark mode promoted honesty in users that were awake for a longer period of time. As such, implementation of dark mode is safe and may even be encouraged.

The present study examines whether collaborative situations make individuals more dishonest in face-to-face settings. It also considers how this dishonesty unfolds over time. To address these questions, we employed a sequential dyadic die-rolling task in which two participants in a pair sitting face-to-face received a payoff only if both reported the same outcome when each one rolled their die. In each trial, one participant (role A) rolled a die first and reported the outcome. Then, the second participant (role B) was informed of A’s reported number, rolled a die as well, and reported the outcome. If their reported outcomes were identical, both of them received a reward. We also included an individual condition in which an individual subject rolled a die twice and received a reward if he/she reported the same die-roll outcome. We found that B lied significantly more than participants in the individual condition, whereas A lied as much as participants in the individual condition. Furthermore, when collaborating, more and more participants (both A and B) became dishonest as the game progressed, whereas there was no such trend among participants in the individual condition. These findings provide evidence indicating that collaborative settings increase dishonesty and that this effect becomes more evident as the collaboration progress.

Identifying true motivation for Pareto lies, which are mutually beneficial for both the liar and others, can be challenging because different covert motivations can lead to identical overt behavior. In this study, we adopted a brain-fingerprinting approach, combining both univariate and multivariate analyses to estimate individual measures of selfish motivation in Pareto lies by the degree of multivoxel neural representation in the mPFC for Pareto lies conforming with those for selfish versus altruistic lies in human participants of either sex. An increase in selfish motivation for Pareto lies was associated with higher mean-level activity in both ventral and rostral mPFC. The former showed an increased pattern similarity to selfish lies, and the latter showed a decreased pattern similarity to altruistic lies. Higher ventral mPFC pattern similarity predicted faster response time in Pareto lies. Our findings demonstrated that hidden selfish motivation in white lies can be revealed by neural representation in the mPFC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dishonesty evolved under natural selection among species. Whether or not individuals become dishonest for self-benefit when they experience distress by thinking about their own death is crucial and unclear. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between death anxiety (i.e., individuals' anxiety about their own death) and individuals' tendencies to be dishonest, and whether individuals' social dominance orientation (SDO) moderated the relationship between death anxiety and tendency for self-benefit dishonesty behaviors. Using two large-scale samples (Studies 1 and 3) and one undergraduate sample (Study 2), three studies (N = 3511) were conducted; all studies supported our hypothesis that death anxiety was positively associated with self-benefit dishonesty. Additionally, results showed that the relationship between death anxiety and tendency to be dishonest only occurred when individuals had a high SDO. These findings inform research on death anxiety by revealing its evolutionary functions regarding the promotion of resource-seeking behaviors (e.g., self-benefit dishonesty). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study examines whether collaborative situations make individuals more dishonest in face-to-face settings. It also considers how this dishonesty unfolds over time. To address these questions, we employed a sequential dyadic die-rolling task in which two participants in a pair sitting face-to-face received a payoff only if both reported the same outcome when each one rolled their die. In each trial, one participant (role A) rolled a die first and reported the outcome. Then, the second participant (role B) was informed of A's reported number, rolled a die as well, and reported the outcome. If their reported outcomes were identical, both of them received a reward. We also included an individual condition in which an individual subject rolled a die twice and received a reward if he/she reported the same die-roll outcome. We found that B lied significantly more than participants in the individual condition, whereas A lied as much as participants in the individual condition. Furthermore, when collaborating, more and more participants (both A and B) became dishonest as the game progressed, whereas there was no such trend among participants in the individual condition. These findings provide evidence indicating that collaborative settings increase dishonesty and that this effect becomes more evident as the collaboration progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A common regulatory dilemma is determining how much trust authorities can place in people's self-reports, especially in contexts with an incentive to cheat. In such contexts, regulators are typically risk averse and do not readily confer trust, resulting in excessive requirements when applying for permits, licenses, etc. Studies in behavioral ethics have suggested that asking people to ex-ante pledge to behave ethically can reduce their level of dishonesty and noncompliance. However, pledges might also backfire by allowing more people to cheat with no real sanctions. Additionally, pledges' effects have almost always been studied in one-shot decision making without sanctions. We explore pledges' potential effects by manipulating whether pledges were accompanied by sanctions (fines) and testing their impact on sequential, repeated ethical decisions. We find that pledges can considerably and consistently reduce dishonesty, and this effect is not crowded out by the presence of fines. Furthermore, pledges also affect "brazen liars" who cheat to a large extent and also those who score low on tendency to follow rules and norms. We conclude that pledges could be an effective tool for the behavioral regulation of dishonesty, to reduce regulatory burden, and to build a more trusting relationship between government and the public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Unethical behavior is usually associated with the risk of negative consequences. • However, the experimental literature so far focused mainly on environments that involve no fines. • We study ethical behavior of individuals and small groups in a compliance setting. • Our results show that groups are clearly less compliant than individuals. • The risk of being detected is the most important aspect in the group communication. Unethical behavior in organizations is usually associated with the risk of negative consequences for the organization and for the involved managers if being detected. The existing experimental literature in economics has so far focused mainly on the analysis of unethical behavior in environments that involve no fines or similar monetary consequences. In the current paper, we use a tax compliance framework to study (un-)ethical behavior of individuals and small groups. Our results show that groups are clearly less compliant than individuals. The risk of being detected is the most important aspect in the group communication process when deciding on compliance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• In our setting individuals can lie to keep an endowment. • Entitlement concerns might influence lying because individuals feel disappointed of receiving less or guilty of receiving more than they deserve. • Participants in an experiment lie more if they earned an endowment through good performance than through bad performance. • Participants who are least entitled to their income lie less than participants with windfall endowments. We study the effect of entitlement on the willingness to lie. We set up a model of lying where individuals feel more or less entitled to their endowment depending on how they earned it. When given the opportunity to lie to keep their endowment, individuals who feel more entitled are encouraged to lie while others are discouraged. To test the model predictions we use a laboratory experiment where we compare the lying behavior of participants endowed with a high endowment and participants endowed with a low endowment. In one treatment, the allocation of the endowment is decided by participants' performance, and in the other, it is determined by a random draw. Our study shows that deservingness influences lying in an intuitive direction: when participants performance determines income, those who earn less money lie less than those who earn more. We do not find differences in lying when participants perform the same task but lie to keep windfall endowments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Instrumental lies had modest parent-child congruence; white lies had low congruence. • Exposure to instrumental and white lies were associated with more lying to parents. • Belief in lies moderated the relationship between white lies and children's lying. How are children socialized about lying? One way is parental modeling of lying given that parents tell various lies to their children for parenting purposes, which is a practice known as parenting by lying. Importantly, how children perceive and interpret the lying behavior around them may be crucial to how they then learn to lie. Yet, we do not know how children's perceptions of different types of parental lies drive this socialization. In a comprehensive birth cohort of parent–child dyads (N = 564; children aged 11 and 12 years) in Singapore, we collected multi-informant reports of instrumental lies (parental lies told for child compliance) and white lies (parental lies told to instill positive emotions), children's belief in parental lies, and children's lying to parents. We found greater consistency in parent and child reports of instrumental lies than of white lies and that children reported greater belief in instrumental lies than in white lies. Children's reported exposure to instrumental lies was associated with greater lying to parents. However, for white lies this relationship was evident only when children had moderate to low beliefs in parental lies. Examining the interplay between parental lies and children's beliefs in those lies, the current study illuminates the potential pathways to children's lying behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"A Defense of Honesty in the Land of Corruption" is a translation of "Apologo sull'onestà nel paese dei corrotti", by Italo Calvino, published in "La Repubblica", March 15, 1980, and republished in "Romanzi e racconti, volume terzo, Racconti e apologhi sparsi", Meridiani, Mondadori, 2005. Composed in the affabulatory but essential style of his collection of traditional Italian fables, the piece presents in few words a stark portrait of contemporary Italy, where every good citizen proceeds with clear conscience and high moral certainty to pocket illicit gains and defraud the state.

The issues of academic integrity and the trends in its development in the European context and in Ukraine have been analyzed in the article. The general and specific trends in the development of academic integrity of future specialists in Europe and in France in particular have been highlighted. The definitional analysis of the categories «academic integrity» and «transparency» has been carried out and the components of academic integrity have been considered. The academic integrity as a component of the quality of education and its provision at the legislative level in the European countries has been analysed. Academic integrity has been considered as certain moral and ethical principles that all members of a civilized educational and scientific community must clearly observe during teaching, learning and scientific activities. The issue of academic integrity has been pointed out as basic and relevant for modern higher education, science, culture and art in the period of global changes in society. The peculiarities of academic integrity development of future specialists have been characterized. Universal features of the development of academic integrity, such as multidimensionality, transparency, objectivity, motivation and the content of improvement, have been highlighted. The concept of academic dishonesty and its manifestation have been analysed. The concepts of plagiarism and its signs, as well as its interpretation in the European context, have been examined. The experience of the European countries in the development of academic integrity and working methods for increasing the level of academic writing to strengthen one’s own argumentation of the facts researched by the scientist, as well as to improve the quality of researchers’ scientific publications by observing the requirements for the scientific articles structure. The article deals with the importance of the introduction of educational on-line trainings on the correct justification and presentation of the author’s scientific achievements, the citation of the scientific works provisions and the dissemination of this practice among the educational community, partnerships between universities and business entities. The concept of a healthy academic culture and its expression has been disclosed. The experience of France in the development and maintenance of academic integrity has been considered.

Rights of Muḥammad Muṣṭafa (Peace be upon Him) have been studied from various perspectives. This paper reviewing the extant research on the subject discusses the duties of Govt. officials from the referred side. It concludes that Prophet Muhammad Mustafa is the most benefactor and humanitarian to mankind in the word. This leads to a unique love for him. Love demands obedience and submission. In this context only those Govt. officials can be considered true in their claim of love for Prophet Muhammad Mustafa who adhere his teachings concerning ability of one’s position, piety, liability, morality and uprightness and refrain from being footloose and profligate, and free themselves from the hunger of wealth and status, censoriously evaluate their deeds, keep an eye on the life hereafter and accountability, hold justice and avoid dishonesty and bias. Without such qualities and characteristics claim of love is just decayed and rotten.

This research describes the working, benefits and challengers of polygraph tests. Polygraph tests are lie-detecting devices that help ascertain individuals’ honesty based on physiological indicators. The heart rate/blood pressure, respiration, and skin responses are the three indicators measured in the test to assess honest/deceitful behavior. The underlying assumption behind the working of polygraph tests is that the autonomic responses of dishonest individuals are distinctively different from those of honest people because the liars will be more nervous than truth tellers. Control Question Test (CQT), Guilty Knowledge Test (GKT) or Concealed Information Test (CIT) and Neuroscience-Based Advanced Polygraph Tests are the important types of polygraph tests used today. Polygraph tests are used to detect truthfulness of individuals in such important fields as crime investigation departments, national security agencies, and business and industry. However, accuracy of polygraph tests and ethical issues associated with the tests are highly debated.

There is a long-standing debate regarding the cognitive nature of (dis)honesty: Is honesty an automatic response or does it require willpower in the form of cognitive control in order to override an automatic dishonest response. In a recent study (Speer et al., 2020), we proposed a reconciliation of these opposing views by showing that activity in areas associated with cognitive control, particularly the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), helped dishonest participants to be honest, whereas it enabled cheating for honest participants. These findings suggest that cognitive control is not needed to be honest or dishonest per se but that it depends on an individual’s moral default. However, while our findings provided insights into the role of cognitive control in overriding a moral default, they did not reveal whether overriding honest default behavior (non-habitual dishonesty) is the same as overriding dishonest default behavior (non-habitual honesty) at the neural level. This speaks to the question as to whether cognitive control mechanisms are domain-general or may be context specific. To address this, we applied multivariate pattern analysis to compare neural patterns of non-habitual honesty to non-habitual dishonesty. We found that these choices are differently encoded in the IFG, suggesting that engaging cognitive control to follow the norm (that cheating is wrong) fundamentally differs from applying control to violate this norm.

Dishonest and fraudulent behavior poses a serious threat to both individuals and societies. Many studies investigating dishonesty rely on (one of) a few well‐established lab and online cheating paradigms. Quite surprisingly, though, the external validity of these paradigms has only been investigated in a small number of studies, raising the question of whether behavior in these paradigms is related to real‐life dishonesty or, more broadly, socially questionable behavior. Tackling this gap, we link observed behavior in two widely used cheating paradigms to approval rates on two crowdworking platforms (namely, Prolific and Amazon Mechanical Turk) using data from four studies (overall N = 5,183). Results indicate that lower approval rates are associated with higher proportions of dishonest individuals. Importantly, this relation also holds for crowdworkers who exceed commonly used thresholds for study inclusion. The results thus support the external validity of (two widely used) cheating paradigms. Further, the study identifies approval rates as a variable that explains dishonesty on crowdworking platforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate experimentally the effects of the opportunity to pre‐plan one's action on dynamic (im)moral decision makings in two stages. In the experiment we either provided the subjects at the outset with the information that they might be able to tell lies to improve their payoff repeatedly (hence they could pre‐plan accordingly), or provided such information at the beginning of each stage (and hence they could not pre‐plan). Furthermore, we controlled whether they had the incentive to resort to telling a lie in the first stage or not. Our two main findings are: (i) when subjects were not informed about the second opportunity to lie at the outset, those who had an opportunity to lie in the first stage lied more often in the second stage compared to those who did not have such an opportunity; and (ii) pre‐planning induced subjects to lie more often in the first stage. We conjecture that pre‐planning invited a compensatory, instead of consistent, action, and thus induced more dishonest responses in the beginning and fewer later. We also discuss the extent of 'partial lying', i.e., lying in only one stage, across the treatments and its effect on the overall rate of lying. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a long-standing debate regarding the cognitive nature of (dis)honesty: Is honesty an automatic response or does it require willpower in the form of cognitive control in order to override an automatic dishonest response. In a recent study (Speer et al., 2020), we proposed a reconciliation of these opposing views by showing that activity in areas associated with cognitive control, particularly the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), helped dishonest participants to be honest, whereas it enabled cheating for honest participants. These findings suggest that cognitive control is not needed to be honest or dishonest per se but that it depends on an individual's moral default. However, while our findings provided insights into the role of cognitive control in overriding a moral default, they did not reveal whether overriding honest default behavior (non-habitual dishonesty) is the same as overriding dishonest default behavior (non-habitual honesty) at the neural level. This speaks to the question as to whether cognitive control mechanisms are domain-general or may be context specific. To address this, we applied multivariate pattern analysis to compare neural patterns of non-habitual honesty to non-habitual dishonesty. We found that these choices are differently encoded in the IFG, suggesting that engaging cognitive control to follow the norm (that cheating is wrong) fundamentally differs from applying control to violate this norm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the England and Wales Court of Appeal case R. v. Nyonyintono (Winifred), with topics that include aiding and abetting, benefit fraud, and fraud by false representation.

Dishonesty erodes society. Although much is known about dishonesty, the process leading up to the decision of whether to be honest or dishonest is often assumed to be homogenous and is not well understood. In this paper, we take a more nuanced approach and explore more closely the process of deciding whether to cheat or be honest when an opportunity to cheat arises. We do this in two laboratory eye tracking experiments. In our first experiment (n = 193), we identify heterogeneity in the decision to cheat. Some decisions on whether to cheat or be honest exhibit relatively little variation and appear to be oriented towards cheating (or honesty) with apparently little consideration of the alternative, whereas other decisions seem to be characterized by a higher degree of consideration for both decision alternatives. Our second experiment (n = 299) demonstrates that a gaze dependent intervention in the choices process is able to affect the behavioral outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the role of cognitive control in moral decision-making, focusing on conflicts between financial temptations and the integrity of honesty. We employed a perceptual task by asking participants to identify which side of the diagonal contained more red dots within a square to provoke both honest and dishonest behaviors, tracking their reaction times (RTs). Participants encountered situations with no conflict, ambiguous conflict, and clear conflict. Their behaviors in the clear conflict condition categorized them as either "honest" or "dishonest." Our findings suggested that, in ambiguous conflict situations, honest individuals had significantly longer RTs and fewer self-interest responses than their dishonest counterparts, suggesting a greater need for cognitive control to resolve conflicts and a lesser tendency toward self-interest. Moreover, a negative correlation was found between participants' number of self-interest responses and RTs in ambiguous conflict situations ( r  = -0.27 in study 1 and r  = -0.66 in study 2), and a positive correlation with cheating numbers in clear conflict situations ( r  = 0.36 in study 1 and r  = 0.82 in study 2). This suggests less cognitive control was required for self-interest and cheating responses, bolstering the "Will" hypothesis. We also found that a person's self-interest tendency could predict their dishonest behavior. These insights extend our understanding of the role of cognitive control plays in honesty and dishonesty, with potential applications in education, policy-making, and business ethics., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024 Li, Yan, Wu and Huang.)