On the Origins of Dishonesty: From Parents to Children

33 Pages Posted: 2 Feb 2015 Last revised: 7 Aug 2024

See all articles by Daniel Houser

Daniel Houser

Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science

John A. List

University of Chicago - Department of Economics

Marco Piovesan

University of Copenhagen - Department of Economics

Anya Samek

University of California, San Diego (UCSD) - Rady School of Management; University of Southern California - Center for Economic and Social Research (CESR)

Joachim K. Winter

Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU); CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute); Max Planck Society for the Advancement of the Sciences - Munich Center for the Economics of Aging (MEA); Deutsche Bundesbank - Research Department

Multiple version iconThere are 3 versions of this paper

Date Written: January 2015

Abstract

Acts of dishonesty permeate life. Understanding their origins, and what mechanisms help to attenuate such acts is an underexplored area of research. This study takes an economics approach to explore the propensity of individuals to act dishonestly across different economic environments. We begin by developing a simple model that highlights the channels through which one can increase or decrease dishonest acts. We lend empirical insights into this model by using an experiment that includes both parents and their young children as subjects. We find that the highest level of dishonesty occurs in settings where the parent acts alone and the dishonest act benefits the child rather than the parent. In this spirit, there is also an interesting effect of children on parents’ behavior: in the child’s presence, parents act more honestly, but there are gender differences. Parents act more dishonestly in front of sons than daughters. This finding has the potential of shedding light on the origins of the widely documented gender differences in cheating behavior observed among adults.

Suggested Citation

Houser, Daniel and List, John A. and Piovesan, Marco and Samek, Anya and Winter, Joachim K., On the Origins of Dishonesty: From Parents to Children (January 2015). NBER Working Paper No. w20897, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2558949

Daniel Houser (Contact Author)

Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science ( email )

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John A. List

University of Chicago - Department of Economics ( email )

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Marco Piovesan

University of Copenhagen - Department of Economics ( email )

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Anya Samek

University of California, San Diego (UCSD) - Rady School of Management ( email )

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University of Southern California - Center for Economic and Social Research (CESR) ( email )

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Joachim K. Winter

Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU) ( email )

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CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute) ( email )

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