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Cheating at the End to Avoid Regret.
- 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