Study • Other · Ethics & Compliance
Signing At the Beginning Makes Ethics Salient and Decreases Dishonest Self-Reports in Comparison to Signing At the End.
Shu et al. (2012), ‘Signing at the beginning makes ethics salient and decreases dishonest self-reports in comparison to signing at the end', PNAS vol. 109.
Summary by Mark Egan
The authors sought to prime honesty by asking people to sign at the start of a form rather than the end when reporting how many miles they had driven on their car for insurance purposes. In this case there was a financial incentive to report less miles driven since reporting more would mean you would pay more (i.e. a higher number in the graph implies more honesty). The results indicated the treatment to be effective at inducing more honest declarations.
Tactics used
TACTICS
Priming
TACTICS
Moral Suasion
Behaviors addressed
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