Let’s Be Honest: I Would Cheat If I Didn’t Know You - An Online and Field Experiment on the Effect of Knowing the Experimenter and Priming with Benefits on Dishonesty

Dishonesty is an extensively studied subject. So far, no study had looked at the effect of prior familiarity of subjects with the experimenter on dishonesty. Subjects could act as if they are honest, because they know the experimenter. This is a potential confounding factor for research on dishonesty conducted with a convenience sample. This effect was investigated by this study. Additionally, the effect of priming subjects with potential benefits of cheating on the likelihood to act dishonestly was examined. Both an online and field experiment were conducted, to study the generalizability of results. 279 members of a student association participated, part of them were familiar with the experimenter. Subjects had to perform the matrix task and state their performance afterwards, which could not be checked. Their performance determined the amount of tickets earned for a lottery to win a gift card worth €50. Afterwards, an e-mail was send to verify the amount of lottery tickets earned. Half of the subjects were deliberately send an amount higher than was actually earned. Not replying to the e-mail was interpreted as cheating. Familiarity with the experimenter and priming both did not have a significant effect on dishonesty. Behavior in the online and field experiment were also not significantly related. More subjects behaved dishonestly in the field experiment than in the online experiment. A significant effect of gender was confirmed, men were more likely to be dishonest than women in the online experiment. Further research that overcomes the limitations of this study is necessary to draw more robust conclusions.