Buying Unethical Loyalty: A Behavioral Paradigm and Empirical Test

Abstract

Unethical behavior is often accompanied by others covering up a transgressor’s actions. We devised a novel behavioral paradigm, the Unethical Loyalty Game (ULG), to study individuals’ willingness to lie to cover up others’ dishonesty. Specifically, we examined (i) whether and to what extent individuals are willing to lie to cover up others’ unethical behavior, (ii) whether this unethical loyalty depends on the benefits (bribe) at stake, and (iii) whether trait Honesty–Humility accounts for interindividual variability in unethical loyalty. In a fully incentivized experiment ( N = 288), we found a high prevalence of lying to cover up others’ unethical behavior, which increased with increasing bribes. In turn, unethical loyalty decreased with individuals’ Honesty–Humility levels. Overall, the findings show that most but not all individuals are corruptible to disguise others’ transgressions. Future research using the ULG can help to further illuminate (the determinants of) this prevalent type of unethical behavior.

The relation between Honesty-Humility and moral concerns as expressed in language

“…Taken together, our findings suggest that one of the reasons why individuals with higher levels of Honesty-Humility engage in more prosocial and less antisocial behavior might be fairness/justice concerns, rather than care/harm, loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, and sanctity/degradation concerns. Indeed, such a possibility is in line with the theoretical understanding of Honesty-Humility as a trait primarily focused on fairness (e.g., Ashton & Lee, 2007;Ashton & Lee, 2009;Hilbig et al, 2015), as well as with research showing that in contexts when fairness is at odds with other moral concerns such as care and loyalty, high-Honesty-Humility individuals tend to act in line with the former (e.g., Ścigała et al, 2019;Thielmann et al, 2021). Other research, however, points out that under certain circumstances, individuals high in Honesty-Humility rather prefer loyalty over fairness/honesty (Ścigała et al, 2020a).…”

“…Pro-and antisocial behaviors-such as charity donations, bribery, and corruptionhave far-reaching consequences for individuals and societies at large (e.g., United Nations, 2018). In the light of this relevance, researchers have identified a range of individual and situational factors that predict such behaviors (e.g., Ścigała et al, 2020a;Thielmann et al, 2021). For instance, the basic personality trait Honesty-Humility from the HEXACO Model of Personality-defined as "the tendency to be fair and genuine when dealing with others" (Ashton & Lee, 2007 p. 156)-has been found to consistently predict a range of pro-and antisocial behaviors, such as cooperation, dishonesty, and generosity (for meta-analytical evidence, see e.g., Zettler et al, 2020).…”

“…For instance, the basic personality trait Honesty-Humility from the HEXACO Model of Personality-defined as "the tendency to be fair and genuine when dealing with others" (Ashton & Lee, 2007 p. 156)-has been found to consistently predict a range of pro-and antisocial behaviors, such as cooperation, dishonesty, and generosity (for meta-analytical evidence, see e.g., Zettler et al, 2020). But while the relation between Honesty-Humility and pro-and antisocial behavior is well-established, the question of why Honesty-Humility predicts such behavior has been investigated to a far lesser extent (e.g., Hilbig et al, 2015;Pfattheicher & Böhm, 2018;Ścigała et al, 2020b;Thielmann et al, 2021).…”

Collaborative Cheating in Hierarchical Teams: Effects of Incentive Structure and Leader Behavior on Subordinate Behavior and Perceptions of Leaders

“…Thus, people may attempt to justify their cheating as benefiting their immediate partner while discounting harm brought upon more distant others (Weisel & Shalvi, 2015). Indeed, the longer individuals cooperate with a partner in a potentially corrupt relationship, the greater the chances are for corruption to occur (Abbink, 2004)—especially when relationships are reciprocal (Song & Zhong, 2015; Thielmann et al, 2021), or when individuals know each other well (Akbari et al, 2020; Irlenbusch et al, 2020).…”

Does moral commitment predict resistance to corruption? experimental evidence from a bribery game

“…However, they do not offer insights into why–even within the same (organizational) environment–individuals largely differ in their susceptibility to corruption [ 12 , 13 ]. While some individuals quickly adopt corrupt practices when faced with a corrupt environment in the workplace, others appear to be more resistant to corruption, despite external pressure or prospects of financial benefits [ 14 – 17 ]. This raises an important issue relevant for research and practice alike: Who is more likely to resist corruption and why?…”