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Cheating at the End to Avoid Regret.

Authors :
Effron, Daniel A.
Bryan, Christopher J.
Murnighan, Keith
Source :
Academy of Management Annual Meeting Proceedings; 2014, Vol. 2014 Issue 1, p1-1, 1p
Publication Year :
2014

Abstract

What happens when people have repeated opportunities to cheat? Across 5 studies, we gave 2,585 people over 25,000 opportunities to cheat. We observed a consistent pattern: Cheating increased at the end of a series of ethical choices. Cheating took two forms: Participants could repeatedly lie about the outcome of a private coin flip to get a payoff that they would otherwise not receive (Studies 1-3), or they could repeatedly overbill us for work (Study 5). In both cases, the cheat-at-the-end effect depended on the number of cheating opportunities that remained rather than the number of opportunities they had already faced, making it difficult for depleted self-control or the gradual erosion of moral standards to explain the results. Mediation analysis suggested that anticipated regret about foregoing a last opportunity to enrich oneself explained elevated cheating at the end (Study 4). These results shed light on the psychological and behavioral dynamics of repeated ethical choices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
21516561
Volume :
2014
Issue :
1
Database :
Complementary Index
Journal :
Academy of Management Annual Meeting Proceedings
Publication Type :
Conference
Accession number :
128807017
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.5465/AMBPP.2014.11485abstract