Following the crowd: The effects of descriptive norms and self-esteem on dishonest behavior

Abstract

This research’s major objective consisted of assessing the effect of a manipulation of peer descriptive norms on dishonest behavior. Specifically, we aimed at analyzing to what extent an interaction with an ingroup member would influence participants towards cheating in a task to obtain more money. A laboratory experiment with 198 participants in which a confederate interacted with the experimental group participants, telling them how to act to achieve the maximum reward in a task was performed. We found that the tip provided by the confederate led individuals toward being more dishonest in comparison with the control group. Besides, descriptive norms of daily dishonesty were significant predictors of the results obtained in the task, providing further evidence to the influence of other’s dishonesty on participants’ behavior. Also, a significant negative relationship between descriptive norms and self-esteem has been found, which indicates that individuals with low self-esteem are particularly more impressionable by such norms. These results suggest that making descriptive norms of honesty salient as well as working toward promoting enhancement of individuals’ self-esteem may reduce engagement in dishonest behavior.