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Related Experiment Video

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The Collective Trust Game: An Online Group Adaptation of the Trust Game Based on the HoneyComb Paradigm

The Collective Trust Game: An Online Group Adaptation of the Trust Game Based on the HoneyComb Paradigm

Published on: October 20, 2022

Careful Cheating: People Cheat Groups Rather than Individuals.

Amitai Amir¹, Tehila Kogut², Yoella Bereby-Meyer¹

¹Department of Psychology, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Beer Sheva, Israel.

Frontiers in Psychology

|April 12, 2016

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

People cheat more when the victim is a group, especially if the harm is described vaguely. Making individual harm explicit reduces cheating, regardless of victim type.

Keywords:

dishonesty ethics morality the singularity effect

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Area of Science:

Behavioral Economics
Social Psychology
Ethics

Background:

Cheating for material gain poses societal risks.
Understanding the psychological factors influencing unethical behavior is crucial.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate how the number of victims (individual vs. group) affects cheating behavior.
To determine if the explicitness of harm influences the decision to cheat.
To explore the role of rational and intuitive thinking in cheating.

Main Methods:

Three experimental studies were conducted.
Participants' cheating behavior was observed under varying conditions of victim type and harm description.
Individual differences in cognitive styles (rational vs. intuitive thinking) were assessed.

Main Results:

Cheating increased when the victim was a group and harm was presented globally (Studies #1 and #3).
When individual harm was explicit, cheating decreased towards groups (Study #2).
Minor harm increased cheating regardless of victim type (Study #2).
Intuitive thinking inhibited cheating against individuals, while rational thinking encouraged cheating against groups.

Conclusions:

The perception of harm and the victim's identity significantly influence unethical behavior.
Cognitive processing (rational vs. intuitive) plays a differential role in cheating depending on the victim.
Understanding these factors can inform strategies to mitigate unethical conduct.