Honesty Pledges: the Effects of Involvement and Identification Over Time

Abstract

Authorities and managers often rely on individuals’ and businesses’ self-reports, and employ various kinds of veracity statements, honesty pledges or oaths to ensure they do not over-claim payments, benefits, or other resources. While some research show honesty pledges can reduce dishonesty, others have provided mixed, and sometimes even contradictory, findings. We argue that understanding and predicting when honesty pledges are effective has been obstructed due to variations in the operationalizations of honesty pledges in previous research. Specifically, we identify that previous studies varied in whether and how the pledge asks individuals to identify (e.g., by ID, signature or name) and how much involvement, if at all, the pledge requires from the individual. In four pre-registered studies (N>5,000), we systematically examine these elements of a pledge to find that increasing involvement of pledgers (by having them copy the text of the pledge) is often more effective than those that only require identification. In contrast, pledges that only require individuals to read and agree are mostly ineffective. Moreover, we find that the effects of high-involvement pledges persist both over time and both after a short delay between the pledge and the opportunity to cheat. Together, these results contribute both theoretically to the understanding of the mechanisms underlying different honesty pledges as well as offer practical advice to managers and policymakers on how to effectively prevent or reduce dishonesty in self-reports.

Keywords: honesty pledges; nudges; unethical behavior