7 ms·

A simple experiment suggests a way to encourage truthfulness

134 points by gruseom 15y ago

losethos 15y ago
All you have to know in life is God is just. God says... C:\LoseThos\www.losethos.com\text\PILGRIM.TXT an draw, for he saw it was time to bestir him; and Apollyon as fast made at him, throwing darts as thick as hail; by the which, notwithstanding all that Christian could do to avoid it, Apollyon wounded him in his head, his hand, and foot. This made Christian give a little back; Apollyon, therefore, followed his work amain, and Christian again took courage, and resisted as manfully as he could. This sore combat lasted for above half a day, even till Christian was almost quite spent; for you must kn
ianterrell 15y ago
Interpretation: We have an evolutionarily advantageous instinct to maximize short term gains; our reason, however, can override this when we A) view other things as more important (e.g. honesty), and B) give it time to do its job. Amusingly, phrasing it this way and combining it with the language in the article, we have 'original sin' arising from evolution. The religious imagery comes not from nowhere, but explains the biology in the best terms it could find. Protoscience.
- pumainmotion 15y ago
  Thats a great connection you've made between seemingly disconnected & distant disciplines. If we figure out the actual biological and chemical processes involved in a human body while it is indulging in synthesizing an 'original sin', that would be a big win in terms expanding our species' knowledge-base. I'm sure there's research out there that explains at least fews bits of it through experiments where they monitor bodily processes when a person is lying. There are some common methods like the lie-detector and GSR methods, but apart from those external monitoring methods, probably also some molecular/cellular-level observations have been made.
Splines 15y ago
It's probably the same psychology that drives many sales ("buy now and get double your offer!"). Force action before higher reasoning can take hold. Imagine if they modified slot machines to worsen your odds if you didn't put in another quarter within n seconds.
- K2h 15y ago
  That is one scary prospect. I think there are a bunch of people that would fall for such an offering. Look at how alot of the perks are already set up to comp you a drink or other such thing based on how long you have been playing. If you were to say the longer you play continuously, the better your odds,I think you would take every dollar an addicted gambler could scrounge. Sad.
  - jleader 15y ago
    I can't imagine the casinos haven't thought of this; some reasons they might not do it: - People already think "the longer I've played without winning, the greater the chance I'll win now, because I'm 'due'", so there's no need to actually alter the odds (which would cost money) - Or, maybe they're just afraid that people collapsing and dying at the slot machines (of dehydration, starvation, or exhaustion) would lead to bad publicity and more stringent regulation.
    - starwed 15y ago
      I think slot machines have to (by law) pay out a certain average percentage over time. That would probably be pretty hard to manage in conjunction with this scheme.
rodh 15y ago
Although I wonder if being explicitly told to take your time for such a trivial task would make you more conscious of being observed.
- lizardwhoskis 15y ago
  Most likely. As another poster pointed out, what this shows is that our reason--given time to work--can override more instinctual desires to cheat. Part of rationalizing is considering situations, real and unreal, that may influence the outcome. E.g. I may be being observed and if they think I am cheating they may discard me from the pay group. Without that time you wouldn't consider that "chosen at random" may be a lie. So, to the automatic mind your odds of getting paid are the same whether you pick 3 or 6 but the reward for lying is significantly higher. A simple heuristic the automatic mind may use would be (roll)x(payout): 6 x 10 = 60 vs 3 x 10 = 30 I'd be interested if the money incentive might have influence lying in the other direction, however. E.g. I did roll a 6, but if I say the maximum number they may not pay me; if I say a lower number they may be more likely pay me. This could lead to a new rational heuristic including a chance of being paid: 6 x 10 x 0.10 = 6 vs 3 x 10 x 0.50 = 15
srl 15y ago
I find this type of statistical trick (to handle people lying) to be extraordinarily cool, despite (or because of) how trivial it is. An especially elegant version: I remember reading an article (probably posted on here) where to figure out how many people were engaged in some illegal activity (opiate production in Afghanistan?), they asked each person to answer the question only after flipping a coin, and if they coin said heads, they were to always say yes. Thus, saying "yes" was no longer incriminating, and all the researchers had to do to get the value they wanted was subtract 50 and double.
- aprescott 15y ago
  Just to make this technique a bit clearer, since "subtract 50 and double" was a bit vague to me: you ask 100 people the question about illegal activity, and assume they're going to toss the coin and follow the protocol. That gives you 100 "yes" and "no" answers, of which ~50 "yes" answers are due to following the protocol and can just be ignored. The remaining yes/no answers are from the tails results and that's the data you use to get a final answer. As an illegal opiate producer in Afghanistan who answers "yes", you have plausible deniability by just saying "I got heads." The fairness of the coin toss means the researcher asking the question doesn't need to know who got which coin result so it can be kept secret.
  - SpikeGronim 15y ago
    This is a cool concept that is formalized in the "Dining Cryptographers" paper: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dining_cryptographers_problem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dining_cryptographers_problem . You can use this basic idea to create a completely anonymous broadcast channel.
  - noja 15y ago
    Isn't the very key to this that the researcher doesn't see the coin result?
    - joeyo 15y ago
      That's correct. The researcher doesn't know the outcome of any particular coin toss but knows the outcome, in expectation, for a large number of coin tosses.
idoh 15y ago
This experiment was done in Israel - I wonder what would other countries would look like. Israelis seem to be more aggressive and creative in getting what they want than, say, Southern Californians.
- wiremaus 15y ago
  You've clearly never been to Southern California.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
- tacogordito 15y ago
  This is a valid point, and I can only assume you are being downvoted due to "stereotyping." The sample group IS an important factor. For example, Milgram's famous "electric shock" experiment was repeated in many different countries. Germans for example, were very susceptible to authority figures, Australians were lesser so. Results are going to change based on the group being tested. It still doesn't change the fundamental finding of the study, however.
- jongraehl 15y ago
  Probably more relevant to say this experiment was done on college freshmen, but yes, it would be interesting to see differences by country/etc. provided you can provide uniform experimental conditions (at a minimum, keep participants in the dark as to the composition of the experimental group, the fact that it's being done worldwide and comparisons will be made of their nation vs. others, etc).
Resident_Geek 15y ago
Unfortunately, the paper (http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/s.shalvi/bestanden/Shalvi%20et%20al_Honesty%20requires%20time_PS.pdf http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/s.shalvi/bestanden/Shalvi%20et...) doesn't say whether the lower mean for the people in the low time pressure group is because they lied less frequently, or because they lied with lower numbers. I wish they'd included graphs of the actual distributions of reported numbers. That would have been more useful than just the mean, standard deviation, and chi-square results.
- jongraehl 15y ago
  Good point. Obviously this becomes implausible once the mean reaches 3.5 (as it apparently did in the n=74 single die followup, with 3.4). And yes, the data should be available for download.
its_so_on 15y ago
Why Perl, you lying sack of shit!! C:\>perl -we "for(1..76){$sum += (int rand 6) + 1;} print $sum / 76 3.71052631578947 If that should have been 3.5, then 0.21 * 76 = 15.9 extra points over average. Perl, you lying oaf, you owe me 159 shekels. pay up. I guess I'm being ironic, but with n=76, it would be great if "Those who were not under any time pressure reported a mean roll of 3.9. Both groups lied, then." came with a disclaimer about how confident we could be about that.
- Resident_Geek 15y ago
  In the paper in question (http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/s.shalvi/bestanden/Shalvi%20et%20al_Honesty%20requires%20time_PS.pdf http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/s.shalvi/bestanden/Shalvi%20et...), it does. Chi-square test shows p<0.01 and p=0.02 for significance for the high and low time pressure groups, respectively.
- nabilt 15y ago
  n=76 also seems low to me for this type of experiment. There was a great New Yorker article titled "THE TRUTH WEARS OFF", which if I remember correctly, discussed the difficulties of reproducing scientific experiments because we underestimate the occurrences of statistical anomalies. Good time to read that article again. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/12/13/101213fa_fact_lehrer?currentPage=all http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/12/13/101213fa_fact_...
  - jhales 15y ago
    Yea I felt the same way. I found this app to visualize how long it takes the law of large numbers to take affect with a die: http://www.math.usu.edu/~schneit/CTIS/LawOfAverages/ http://www.math.usu.edu/~schneit/CTIS/LawOfAverages/
- bicknergseng 15y ago
  After reading it I was going to say the same thing. What I don't understand is why they compared it to the statistical average rather than just recording what they rolled. It would have been fairly trivial to eliminate that particular statistical variability from the experiment.
mmj48 15y ago
> A different bunch of volunteers were asked to roll the die just once Was anyone else surprised to see "bunch"? Why did they use that, when "group" would be a much better word?
wtvanhest 15y ago
It could also be that the group with more time to calculate decided to make the number closer after thinking that the researcher would know 3.5 was the average. If they provided the data set (all the numbers given) we would get the important... standard deviation which would get us closer to that answer.
mingfu 15y ago
Something interesting I think the article did not mention is that given the difference between the two sets of experiments, where you roll once vs you roll 3 times. As a participant I'd feel more inclined to lie about my first roll if I rolled a higher number in my second or third attempt. I'd be very interested in the results if n was not 76 but instead 7600.
- narkee 15y ago
  The call for larger sample sizes isn't always appropriate. It can often lead to spurious inferences. As Jacob Cohen (famous statistician) has said, "all null hypotheses, at least in the two tailed forms, are false". That is, with nearly any hypothesis about differences between groups, given a large enough sample size, you're likely to find a significant difference.
  - mingfu 15y ago
    i think the difference here is between the two different experiments (one with three rolls of the dice and one with a single roll) and not a difference between the groups. You could choose to use the exact same group of participants for both experiments.
- Resident_Geek 15y ago
  From the paper (http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/s.shalvi/bestanden/Shalvi%20et%20al_Honesty%20requires%20time_PS.pdf http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/s.shalvi/bestanden/Shalvi%20et...), page 5-6: "Shalvi et al. (2011a) asked participants to roll a die under a paper cup with a small hole at the top allowing only them to see the outcome, and earn money according to what they reported rolling (1=$1, 2=$2, etc.). As participants’ rolls were truly private, the authors assessed lying by comparing the reported distribution to the distribution predicted by chance (Fischbacher & Heusi, 2008). Participants were asked to roll three times but to report only the outcome of the first roll. Although all three rolls were private, the distribution of reported outcomes resembled the distribution of choosing the highest of the three observed rolls. Modifying the task to allow participants to roll only once reduced lying. Participants clearly found value in being able to justify their lies to themselves. The authors concluded that observing desired counterfactuals, in the form of desired (higher) values appearing on the second or third (non-relevant for pay) rolls, modified participants’ ethical perceptions of what they considered to be lying. Observing desired counterfactual information enabled participants to enjoy both worlds: lie for money, but feel honest." Shalvi et. al. (2011a) is: Shalvi, S., Dana, J., Handgraaf, M. J. J., & De Dreu, C. K. W. (2011a). Justified ethicality: Observing desired counterfactuals modifies ethical perceptions and behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 115, 181-190.
ggwicz 15y ago
I'm shocked that such a poorly done study is front page news. 76 people, comparing to a simple average, "no way of knowing" the actual results...Come on, seriously? I love science and give credit to everyone working to understand things; but labeling this as a new understanding (even a potential understanding) of psychological incentives is ridiculous.
pessimist 15y ago
The most likely explanation is random noise, and that this experiment will not be repeatable. Sadly almost all psychology studies are like this, an odd result thata is most likely statistical noise.
- jongraehl 15y ago
  You mean that the most likely explanation for us hearing about this study is publication bias, right? But we're talking p<.01 here, so most likely you're wrong. You'd have to believe that 100 similar studies have been performed and we only heard about the one winner.
- G5ANDY 15y ago
  They did two experiments that conceptually replicate research in the area. I agree that results like these need to be replicated by other researchers, but chalking this up to measurement or design error is not the most likely explanation.
seanlinmt 15y ago
This seems to suggest that you would get a more honest reply through email than either phone or face-to-face contact.
rcthompson 15y ago
Is it possible that given time to think, the subjects decided that they probably couldn't get away with cheating, despite wanting to?
- olalonde 15y ago
  It's an interesting hypothesis but it doesn't seem to change the conclusion that "cheating is instinctive".
  - rbarooah 15y ago
    True, as long as you mean 'instinctive' in the sense of default, rather than in the sense of innate.
    - olalonde 15y ago
      Yes that's what I meant.
- Kiro 15y ago
  This is what I'm thinking as well. The more they think about it the more they realize that the possiblity of cheating may be part of the experiment and decide not to do it because they don't want to look like a crook.
jongraehl 15y ago
My guess: immediate temptation to cheat for $10 if you think you can get away with it. On reflection, caution accelerates: 1. The gain is small. 2. Maybe people will find out via mechanism X I didn't think of (hidden cameras?) 3. maybe my report of 6 will be suspicious. maybe a 5 ... no, may as well just go with my original 3 ... 4. How will I feel having cheated? How good will I feel going away having a story of how I was honest even when it cost me? 5. I want to impress my psych teacher with how honest we college freshmen are. 6. Now that I've hesitated so long, I feel even more cautious. I've spent so much time deliberating, when I could have just taken the extra $5 immediately ... I must actually not want to cheat. Perhaps also noteworthy: the above experiment was with 3 dice rolls, but the instruction to report the first. In a second experiment with only 1 die roll, the averages result claimed by both the hurry-up and take-your-time groups was 0.2-0.4 lower. This suggest that people in the 3 die roll group felt more comfortable cheating by reporting the 2nd or 3rd roll, perhaps in their mind lamely equating it with what could have been the 1st roll, or having a justification ready of having honestly misunderstood (I doubt anyone did honestly misunderstand). A difference of 0.2 is surely significant (comparing between N=76 and N=74 freshmen under the 3-dice and 1-die conditions).

134 points by gruseom 15y ago

All you have to know in life is God is just. God says... C:\LoseThos\www.losethos.com\text\PILGRIM.TXT an draw, for he saw it was time to bestir him; and Apollyon as fast made at him, throwing darts as thick as hail; by the which, notwithstanding all that Christian could do to avoid it, Apollyon wounded him in his head, his hand, and foot. This made Christian give a little back; Apollyon, therefore, followed his work amain, and Christian again took courage, and resisted as manfully as he could. This sore combat lasted for above half a day, even till Christian was almost quite spent; for you must kn

ianterrell 15y ago

Interpretation: We have an evolutionarily advantageous instinct to maximize short term gains; our reason, however, can override this when we A) view other things as more important (e.g. honesty), and B) give it time to do its job. Amusingly, phrasing it this way and combining it with the language in the article, we have 'original sin' arising from evolution. The religious imagery comes not from nowhere, but explains the biology in the best terms it could find. Protoscience.

pumainmotion 15y ago
Thats a great connection you've made between seemingly disconnected & distant disciplines. If we figure out the actual biological and chemical processes involved in a human body while it is indulging in synthesizing an 'original sin', that would be a big win in terms expanding our species' knowledge-base. I'm sure there's research out there that explains at least fews bits of it through experiments where they monitor bodily processes when a person is lying. There are some common methods like the lie-detector and GSR methods, but apart from those external monitoring methods, probably also some molecular/cellular-level observations have been made.

Splines 15y ago

It's probably the same psychology that drives many sales ("buy now and get double your offer!"). Force action before higher reasoning can take hold. Imagine if they modified slot machines to worsen your odds if you didn't put in another quarter within n seconds.

K2h 15y ago
That is one scary prospect. I think there are a bunch of people that would fall for such an offering. Look at how alot of the perks are already set up to comp you a drink or other such thing based on how long you have been playing. If you were to say the longer you play continuously, the better your odds,I think you would take every dollar an addicted gambler could scrounge. Sad.
- jleader 15y ago
  I can't imagine the casinos haven't thought of this; some reasons they might not do it: - People already think "the longer I've played without winning, the greater the chance I'll win now, because I'm 'due'", so there's no need to actually alter the odds (which would cost money) - Or, maybe they're just afraid that people collapsing and dying at the slot machines (of dehydration, starvation, or exhaustion) would lead to bad publicity and more stringent regulation.
  - starwed 15y ago
    I think slot machines have to (by law) pay out a certain average percentage over time. That would probably be pretty hard to manage in conjunction with this scheme.

rodh 15y ago

Although I wonder if being explicitly told to take your time for such a trivial task would make you more conscious of being observed.

lizardwhoskis 15y ago
Most likely. As another poster pointed out, what this shows is that our reason--given time to work--can override more instinctual desires to cheat. Part of rationalizing is considering situations, real and unreal, that may influence the outcome. E.g. I may be being observed and if they think I am cheating they may discard me from the pay group. Without that time you wouldn't consider that "chosen at random" may be a lie. So, to the automatic mind your odds of getting paid are the same whether you pick 3 or 6 but the reward for lying is significantly higher. A simple heuristic the automatic mind may use would be (roll)x(payout): 6 x 10 = 60 vs 3 x 10 = 30 I'd be interested if the money incentive might have influence lying in the other direction, however. E.g. I did roll a 6, but if I say the maximum number they may not pay me; if I say a lower number they may be more likely pay me. This could lead to a new rational heuristic including a chance of being paid: 6 x 10 x 0.10 = 6 vs 3 x 10 x 0.50 = 15

srl 15y ago

I find this type of statistical trick (to handle people lying) to be extraordinarily cool, despite (or because of) how trivial it is. An especially elegant version: I remember reading an article (probably posted on here) where to figure out how many people were engaged in some illegal activity (opiate production in Afghanistan?), they asked each person to answer the question only after flipping a coin, and if they coin said heads, they were to always say yes. Thus, saying "yes" was no longer incriminating, and all the researchers had to do to get the value they wanted was subtract 50 and double.

aprescott 15y ago
Just to make this technique a bit clearer, since "subtract 50 and double" was a bit vague to me: you ask 100 people the question about illegal activity, and assume they're going to toss the coin and follow the protocol. That gives you 100 "yes" and "no" answers, of which ~50 "yes" answers are due to following the protocol and can just be ignored. The remaining yes/no answers are from the tails results and that's the data you use to get a final answer. As an illegal opiate producer in Afghanistan who answers "yes", you have plausible deniability by just saying "I got heads." The fairness of the coin toss means the researcher asking the question doesn't need to know who got which coin result so it can be kept secret.
- SpikeGronim 15y ago
  This is a cool concept that is formalized in the "Dining Cryptographers" paper: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dining_cryptographers_problem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dining_cryptographers_problem . You can use this basic idea to create a completely anonymous broadcast channel.
- noja 15y ago
  Isn't the very key to this that the researcher doesn't see the coin result?
  - joeyo 15y ago
    That's correct. The researcher doesn't know the outcome of any particular coin toss but knows the outcome, in expectation, for a large number of coin tosses.

idoh 15y ago

This experiment was done in Israel - I wonder what would other countries would look like. Israelis seem to be more aggressive and creative in getting what they want than, say, Southern Californians.

wiremaus 15y ago
You've clearly never been to Southern California.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
tacogordito 15y ago
This is a valid point, and I can only assume you are being downvoted due to "stereotyping." The sample group IS an important factor. For example, Milgram's famous "electric shock" experiment was repeated in many different countries. Germans for example, were very susceptible to authority figures, Australians were lesser so. Results are going to change based on the group being tested. It still doesn't change the fundamental finding of the study, however.
jongraehl 15y ago
Probably more relevant to say this experiment was done on college freshmen, but yes, it would be interesting to see differences by country/etc. provided you can provide uniform experimental conditions (at a minimum, keep participants in the dark as to the composition of the experimental group, the fact that it's being done worldwide and comparisons will be made of their nation vs. others, etc).

Resident_Geek 15y ago

Unfortunately, the paper (http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/s.shalvi/bestanden/Shalvi%20et%20al_Honesty%20requires%20time_PS.pdf http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/s.shalvi/bestanden/Shalvi%20et...) doesn't say whether the lower mean for the people in the low time pressure group is because they lied less frequently, or because they lied with lower numbers. I wish they'd included graphs of the actual distributions of reported numbers. That would have been more useful than just the mean, standard deviation, and chi-square results.

jongraehl 15y ago
Good point. Obviously this becomes implausible once the mean reaches 3.5 (as it apparently did in the n=74 single die followup, with 3.4). And yes, the data should be available for download.

its_so_on 15y ago

Why Perl, you lying sack of shit!! C:\>perl -we "for(1..76){$sum += (int rand 6) + 1;} print $sum / 76 3.71052631578947 If that should have been 3.5, then 0.21 * 76 = 15.9 extra points over average. Perl, you lying oaf, you owe me 159 shekels. pay up. I guess I'm being ironic, but with n=76, it would be great if "Those who were not under any time pressure reported a mean roll of 3.9. Both groups lied, then." came with a disclaimer about how confident we could be about that.

Resident_Geek 15y ago
In the paper in question (http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/s.shalvi/bestanden/Shalvi%20et%20al_Honesty%20requires%20time_PS.pdf http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/s.shalvi/bestanden/Shalvi%20et...), it does. Chi-square test shows p<0.01 and p=0.02 for significance for the high and low time pressure groups, respectively.
nabilt 15y ago
n=76 also seems low to me for this type of experiment. There was a great New Yorker article titled "THE TRUTH WEARS OFF", which if I remember correctly, discussed the difficulties of reproducing scientific experiments because we underestimate the occurrences of statistical anomalies. Good time to read that article again. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/12/13/101213fa_fact_lehrer?currentPage=all http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/12/13/101213fa_fact_...
- jhales 15y ago
  Yea I felt the same way. I found this app to visualize how long it takes the law of large numbers to take affect with a die: http://www.math.usu.edu/~schneit/CTIS/LawOfAverages/ http://www.math.usu.edu/~schneit/CTIS/LawOfAverages/
bicknergseng 15y ago
After reading it I was going to say the same thing. What I don't understand is why they compared it to the statistical average rather than just recording what they rolled. It would have been fairly trivial to eliminate that particular statistical variability from the experiment.

mmj48 15y ago

> A different bunch of volunteers were asked to roll the die just once Was anyone else surprised to see "bunch"? Why did they use that, when "group" would be a much better word?

wtvanhest 15y ago

It could also be that the group with more time to calculate decided to make the number closer after thinking that the researcher would know 3.5 was the average. If they provided the data set (all the numbers given) we would get the important... standard deviation which would get us closer to that answer.

mingfu 15y ago

Something interesting I think the article did not mention is that given the difference between the two sets of experiments, where you roll once vs you roll 3 times. As a participant I'd feel more inclined to lie about my first roll if I rolled a higher number in my second or third attempt. I'd be very interested in the results if n was not 76 but instead 7600.

narkee 15y ago
The call for larger sample sizes isn't always appropriate. It can often lead to spurious inferences. As Jacob Cohen (famous statistician) has said, "all null hypotheses, at least in the two tailed forms, are false". That is, with nearly any hypothesis about differences between groups, given a large enough sample size, you're likely to find a significant difference.
- mingfu 15y ago
  i think the difference here is between the two different experiments (one with three rolls of the dice and one with a single roll) and not a difference between the groups. You could choose to use the exact same group of participants for both experiments.
Resident_Geek 15y ago
From the paper (http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/s.shalvi/bestanden/Shalvi%20et%20al_Honesty%20requires%20time_PS.pdf http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/s.shalvi/bestanden/Shalvi%20et...), page 5-6: "Shalvi et al. (2011a) asked participants to roll a die under a paper cup with a small hole at the top allowing only them to see the outcome, and earn money according to what they reported rolling (1=$1, 2=$2, etc.). As participants’ rolls were truly private, the authors assessed lying by comparing the reported distribution to the distribution predicted by chance (Fischbacher & Heusi, 2008). Participants were asked to roll three times but to report only the outcome of the first roll. Although all three rolls were private, the distribution of reported outcomes resembled the distribution of choosing the highest of the three observed rolls. Modifying the task to allow participants to roll only once reduced lying. Participants clearly found value in being able to justify their lies to themselves. The authors concluded that observing desired counterfactuals, in the form of desired (higher) values appearing on the second or third (non-relevant for pay) rolls, modified participants’ ethical perceptions of what they considered to be lying. Observing desired counterfactual information enabled participants to enjoy both worlds: lie for money, but feel honest." Shalvi et. al. (2011a) is: Shalvi, S., Dana, J., Handgraaf, M. J. J., & De Dreu, C. K. W. (2011a). Justified ethicality: Observing desired counterfactuals modifies ethical perceptions and behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 115, 181-190.

ggwicz 15y ago

I'm shocked that such a poorly done study is front page news. 76 people, comparing to a simple average, "no way of knowing" the actual results...Come on, seriously? I love science and give credit to everyone working to understand things; but labeling this as a new understanding (even a potential understanding) of psychological incentives is ridiculous.

pessimist 15y ago

The most likely explanation is random noise, and that this experiment will not be repeatable. Sadly almost all psychology studies are like this, an odd result thata is most likely statistical noise.

jongraehl 15y ago
You mean that the most likely explanation for us hearing about this study is publication bias, right? But we're talking p<.01 here, so most likely you're wrong. You'd have to believe that 100 similar studies have been performed and we only heard about the one winner.
G5ANDY 15y ago
They did two experiments that conceptually replicate research in the area. I agree that results like these need to be replicated by other researchers, but chalking this up to measurement or design error is not the most likely explanation.

seanlinmt 15y ago

This seems to suggest that you would get a more honest reply through email than either phone or face-to-face contact.

rcthompson 15y ago

Is it possible that given time to think, the subjects decided that they probably couldn't get away with cheating, despite wanting to?

olalonde 15y ago
It's an interesting hypothesis but it doesn't seem to change the conclusion that "cheating is instinctive".
- rbarooah 15y ago
  True, as long as you mean 'instinctive' in the sense of default, rather than in the sense of innate.
  - olalonde 15y ago
    Yes that's what I meant.
Kiro 15y ago
This is what I'm thinking as well. The more they think about it the more they realize that the possiblity of cheating may be part of the experiment and decide not to do it because they don't want to look like a crook.

jongraehl 15y ago

My guess: immediate temptation to cheat for $10 if you think you can get away with it. On reflection, caution accelerates: 1. The gain is small. 2. Maybe people will find out via mechanism X I didn't think of (hidden cameras?) 3. maybe my report of 6 will be suspicious. maybe a 5 ... no, may as well just go with my original 3 ... 4. How will I feel having cheated? How good will I feel going away having a story of how I was honest even when it cost me? 5. I want to impress my psych teacher with how honest we college freshmen are. 6. Now that I've hesitated so long, I feel even more cautious. I've spent so much time deliberating, when I could have just taken the extra $5 immediately ... I must actually not want to cheat. Perhaps also noteworthy: the above experiment was with 3 dice rolls, but the instruction to report the first. In a second experiment with only 1 die roll, the averages result claimed by both the hurry-up and take-your-time groups was 0.2-0.4 lower. This suggest that people in the 3 die roll group felt more comfortable cheating by reporting the 2nd or 3rd roll, perhaps in their mind lamely equating it with what could have been the 1st roll, or having a justification ready of having honestly misunderstood (I doubt anyone did honestly misunderstand). A difference of 0.2 is surely significant (comparing between N=76 and N=74 freshmen under the 3-dice and 1-die conditions).