Bringing angels and demons down to earth: Real-life generality and mechanisms of the link between personality and ethical behavior
Final Report Abstract
Dishonest behavior is highly prevalent in our society, being involved in private contexts (e.g., cheating in romantic relationships), semi-public settings (e.g., tax evasion), and large public crises (e.g., cheating on pollution emissions tests). Correspondingly, the study of dishonesty has received considerable attention across scientific disciplines. A striking finding of this interdisciplinary is that there are substantial individual differences in dishonesty, showing that some people are willing to lie whereas others or not. Prior research investigating this individual variation has suggested Honesty-Humility from the HEXACO model as the single best trait predictor of dishonest behavior from the perspective of basic personality models. However, a deeper understanding of this very link has been missing so far. The current follow-up project aimed at filling this gap by providing a critical test of (i) the generalizability of the link between Honesty-Humility and dishonesty (i.e., “when”) and (ii) the mechanisms underlying this relation (i.e., “why”). Overall, the project confirmed the consistent negative link between Honesty-Humility and dishonest behavior and demonstrated the considerable robustness of this association. Specifically, in all studies conducted, we found a negative relation between Honesty-Humility and lying, with the only exception being a situation in which needy others profited from one’s dishonesty. Conversely, manipulating the (subjective) utility or the social justifiability – in the sense that lying affected other participants – did not significantly alter the relation between Honesty-Humility and dishonesty. Moreover, the project provided important insights into the determinants of dishonest behavior in general, showing that dishonesty is affected by incentives offered, the probability and severity of sanctions, and psychological costs due to threatening individuals’ moral self-image. Overall, the project thus helped advancing the understanding of dishonest behavior – and individual differences therein – further, thereby providing an important contribution to the field.
Publications
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(2021) Buying Unethical Loyalty: A Behavioral Paradigm and Empirical Test. Social Psychological and Personality Science 12 (3) 363–370
Thielmann, I., Böhm, R., & Hilbig, B. E.
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(2017). Does everyone have a price? On the role of payoff magnitude for ethical decision making. Cognition, 163, 15-25
Hilbig, B. E., & Thielmann, I.
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(2018). Daring dishonesty: On the role of sanctions for (un)ethical behavior. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 79, 71-77
Thielmann, I., & Hilbig, B. E.
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(2018). Who lies? A largescale reanalysis linking basic personality traits to unethical decision making. Judgment & Decision Making, 13, 356-371
Heck, D. W., Thielmann, I., Moshagen, M., & Hilbig, B. E.
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(2019). No gain without pain: The psychological costs of dishonesty. Journal of Economic Psychology, 71, 126-137
Thielmann, I., & Hilbig, B. E.
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(2020). On the limited generality of air pollution and anxiety as causal determinants of unethical behavior: Commentary on Lu, Lee, Gino, & Galinsky (2018). Psychological Science, 31(6), 741-747
Heck, D. W., Thielmann, I., Klein, S. A., & Hilbig, B. E.
