Is Dishonesty Contagious? An Experiment

Innes, Robert; Mitra, Arnab

doi:10.2139/ssrn.1426002

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Is Dishonesty Contagious? An Experiment

41 Pages Posted: 27 Jun 2009 Last revised: 9 Sep 2009

See all articles by Robert Innes

Robert Innes

University of Arizona - Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics

Arnab Mitra

University of Arizona, Department of Economics; Portland State University

Date Written: June 26, 2009

Abstract

When an individual believes that peers are predominantly untruthful in a given situation, is he/she more likely to be untruthful in that situation? We study this question in a deception experiment patterned after Gneezy (2005), finding evidence that dishonesty is indeed contagious. We argue that existing theories of other-regarding preferences are unlikely to explain this result.

Keywords: Deception, Contagion, Experiment

JEL Classification: C91, A13

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Innes, Robert D. and Mitra, Arnab and Mitra, Arnab, Is Dishonesty Contagious? An Experiment (June 26, 2009). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1426002 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1426002