Anger and Dishonesty - An Experimental Study

This study examines the effect of anger on cheating behaviour, by means of an online experiment. In this experiment subjects were randomly divided in a treatment group and a control group, the subjects in the treatment group are primed with anger before self-reporting back the total number of a virtual dice roll, the subjects in the control group did not receive this prime before reporting back the total number. Findings indicate that anger increases cheating behaviour, but that a higher intensity of anger does not lead to more cheating behaviour. Additionally demographic features like gender, age, religion and perceived income were found to have no effect on cheating behaviour.