Signing at the beginning versus at the end does not decrease dishonesty
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Date
2020
Authors
Kristal, Ariella S.
Whillans, Ashley V.
Bazerman, Max H.
Gino, Francesca
Shu, Lisa L.
Mazar, Nina
Ariely, Dan
Version
Published version
OA Version
Citation
Ariella S Kristal, Ashley V Whillans, Max H Bazerman, Francesca Gino, Lisa L Shu, Nina Mazar, Dan Ariely. 2020. "Signing at the beginning versus at the end does not decrease dishonesty." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 117, Issue 13, pp. 7103 - 7107. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1911695117
Abstract
Honest reporting is essential for society to function well. However, people frequently lie when asked to provide information, such as misrepresenting their income to save money on taxes. A landmark finding published in PNAS [L. L. Shu, N. Mazar, F. Gino, D. Ariely,M. H. Bazerman,Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.109, 15197–15200 (2012)] provided evidence for a simple way of encouraging honest reporting: asking people to sign a veracity statement at the beginning instead of at the end of a self-report form. Since this finding was published, various government agencies have adopted this practice. However, in this project, we failed to replicate this result. Across five conceptual replications (n=4,559) and one highly powered, preregistered, direct replication (n=1,235) conducted with the authors of the original paper, we observed no effect of signing first on honest reporting. Given the policy applications of this result, it is important to update the scientific record regarding the veracity of these results.
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License
© 2020 The Author(s). This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC BY).