In three experiments, we examined the cognitive underpinnings of self-serving dishonesty by manipulating cognitive load under different incentive structures. Participants could increase a financial bonus by misreporting outcomes of private die rolls without any risk of detection. At the same time, they had to remember letter strings of varying length. If honesty is the automatic response tendency and dishonesty is cognitively demanding, lying behavior should be less evident under high cognitive load. This hypothesis was supported by the outcome of two out of three experiments. We further manipulated whether all trials or only one random trial determined payoff to modulate reward adaptation over time (Experiment 2) and whether payoff was framed as a financial gain or loss (Experiment 3). The payoff scheme of one random or all trials did not affect lying behavior and, discordant to earlier research, facing losses instead of gains did not increase lying behavior. Finally, cognitive load and incentive frame interacted significantly, but contrary to our assumption gains increased lying under low cognitive load. While the impact of cognitive load on dishonesty appears to be comparably robust, motivational influences seem to be more elusive than commonly assumed in current theorizing.

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Voluntary actions are accompanied by a sense of control over this action and its effects. Forming an appropriate sense of control (or sense of agency) has widespread consequences of individual and societal relevance. Moreover, perceived control might serve as a powerful action motivator, although this critical function has been addressed scarcely so far. Thus, in two experiments (N = 101 adults for each study), we directly examined the value of control for human agents by allowing participants to choose between financial gain and situational control. Crucially, a significant share of participants chose to be in control even when this option was less financially rewarding. That is, participants had to be offered 66% (Study 1) and 34% (Study 2) of expected asset earnings as an additional reward to make them predictably waive control. In addition to the value of objective decision rights, we also measured subjectively perceived control. This is a further extension of prior research as similar levels of objective control can lead to substantially different subjective feelings of control. Hereby, we found a share of the participants to create an illusionary sense of agency in situations of little objective control. These results portray perceived control as a powerful motivator for human behavior that comes with a unique and quantifiable value for individual agents.

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