Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

This study examines whether dishonest behaviors occur easily. In 60 trials, 100 undergraduate students viewed20 dots on a square divided into right and left sides and had to decide which side contained more dots within one second(developed by Gino et al., 2010). In with-reward condition, participants received 0.1 point for each left decision and 1 pointfor each right decision, and they received more sweets depending on points. Therefore, this asymmetrical payment structuretriggered motivation to dishonestly report more right-side dots, even when there are actually more left-side dots. The resultsdemonstrate that participants decided at greater frequencies that more dots were on the right side in with-reward conditionthan in without-reward condition, indicating dishonest behaviors occurred. Furthermore, participants with greater right-sidefrequencies in with-reward condition showed lower points on a morality scale. These results suggest dishonest behaviors occureasily and are related with a decline in morality.