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Edited* by Daniel Kahneman, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, and approved July 23, 2012 (received for review June 11, 2012)
Abstract
Many written forms required by businesses and governments rely on honest reporting. Proof of honest intent is typically provided through signature at the end of, e.g., tax returns or insurance policy forms. Still, people sometimes cheat to advance their financial self-interests—at great costs to society. We test an easy-to-implement method to discourage dishonesty: signing at the beginning rather than at the end of a self-report, thereby reversing the order of the current practice. Using laboratory and field experiments, we find that signing before—rather than after—the opportunity to cheat makes ethics salient when they are needed most and significantly reduces dishonesty.
Footnotes
- ↵1To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: nina.mazar{at}rotman.utoronto.ca.
Author contributions: L.L.S., N.M., F.G., D.A., and M.H.B. designed research; L.L.S., F.G., and D.A. performed research; N.M., F.G., and D.A. analyzed data; and L.L.S., N.M., F.G., D.A., and M.H.B. wrote the paper.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
↵*This Direct Submission article had a prearranged editor.
This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1209746109/-/DCSupplemental.
Signing at the beginning decreases dishonesty
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- Social Sciences
- Psychological and Cognitive Sciences
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