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Dishonesty under scrutiny

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2025

Jeroen van de Ven  and
Marie Claire Villeval
Jeroen van de Ven*
Affiliation:
ACLE (University of Amsterdam) and Tinbergen Institute, Valckeniersstraat 65-67, 1018 XE Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Marie Claire Villeval*
Affiliation:
Université de Lyon, 69007 Lyon, France CNRS, GATE Lyon St Etienne, 93, Chemin des Mouilles, 69130 Ecully, France IZA, Bonn, Germany
*
e-mail: j.vandeven@uva.nl
e-mail: villeval@gate.cnrs.fr
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Abstract

We investigate how different forms of scrutiny affect dishonesty, using Gneezy’s [Am Econ Rev 95:384–394 (2005)] deception game. We add a third player whose interests are aligned with those of the sender. We find that lying behavior is not sensitive to revealing the sender’s identity to the observer. The option for observers to communicate with the sender, and the option to reveal the sender’s lies to the receiver also do not affect lying behavior. Even more striking, senders whose identity is revealed to their observer do not lie less when their interests are misaligned with those of the observer.

Keywords

DeceptionLiesDishonestySocial imageExperiment

JEL classification

C91: Laboratory, Individual Behavior D83: Search • Learning • Information and Knowledge • Communication • Belief • Unawareness
Type
Original Paper
Information
Journal of the Economic Science Association , Volume 1 , Issue 1 , July 2015 , pp. 86 - 99
Copyright
Copyright © Economic Science Association 2015

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Footnotes

Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s40881-015-0002-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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