The collaborative roots of corruption

Abstract

Cooperation is essential for completing tasks that individuals cannot accomplish alone. Whereas the benefits of cooperation are clear, little is known about its possible negative aspects. Introducing a novel sequential dyadic die-rolling paradigm, we show that collaborative settings provide fertile ground for the emergence of corruption. In the main experimental treatment the outcomes of the two players are perfectly aligned. Player A privately rolls a die, reports the result to player B, who then privately rolls and reports the result as well. Both players are paid the value of the reports if, and only if, they are identical (e.g., if both report 6, each earns €6). Because rolls are truly private, players can inflate their profit by misreporting the actual outcomes. Indeed, the proportion of reported doubles was 489% higher than the expected proportion assuming honesty, 48% higher than when individuals rolled and reported alone, and 96% higher than when lies only benefited the other player. Breaking the alignment in payoffs between player A and player B reduced the extent of brazen lying. Despite player B's central role in determining whether a double was reported, modifying the incentive structure of either player A or player B had nearly identical effects on the frequency of reported doubles. Our results highlight the role of collaboration-particularly on equal terms-in shaping corruption. These findings fit a functional perspective on morality. When facing opposing moral sentiments-to be honest vs. to join forces in collaboration-people often opt for engaging in corrupt collaboration.cooperation | corruption | decision making | behavioral ethics |

Condemning corruption while condoning inefficiency: an experimental investigation into voting behavior

“…When others revealed their acceptance of politician 2 in the previous election, voters were more likely to do the same and to accept such a politician, thus conforming to group behavior and choices. A similar effect has been observed in experiments studying corruption in collaborative settings, and that reveal how these increase rates of corruption (Weisel and Shalvi 2015). No statistical evidence is found that the norm encouraged the very few voters who were willing to accept corruption to refrain from it.…”

Complicity without connection or communication

“…Closely related to our study are those of: Conrads, Irlenbusch, Rilke, and Walkowitz (2014) who found that people lie more when the returns to lying must be shared with another; Alempaki, Doğan and Saccardo (2016) who found that senders in a sender-receiver game lie less when the receivers played fairly in a prior dictator game; Weisel and Shalvi (2015) who found that, in a sequential twoplayer game in which both must lie for each to secure a positive monetary payoff, when the first player lies, the second player reciprocates by also lying; and Kocher, Schudy, and Spantig (2016) who found that communication within a group increases dishonesty. However, none of these prior studies investigate simultaneous coordination involving immoral behavior or isolate the effect of having a potential accomplice from other pro-social motivations for lying, while at the same time eliminating all possible forms of communication, including signaling intent through choice of action.…”

Who Lies? A Meta-Analysis of the Effect of Sex, Age, and Education on Honesty

“…Cases in which people act honestly, even when no one is watching, abound, as it has been pointed out by recent research in experimental economics and psychology. For example, when people are asked to report the outcome from a (privately rolled) dice, knowing that their payoff will be equal to the outcome reported (so that they have an incentive to lie), not everyone lies (Fischbacher & Föllmi-Heusi, 2013; Kajackaite and Gneezy, 2015;Weisel and Shalvi, 2015). Similarly, experimental studies have shown that some people act honestly even when being dishonest would be beneficial to all parties involved (Erat & Gneezy, 2012;Cappelen, Sørensen & Tungodded, 2013;Biziou-vanPol, Haenen, Novaro, Occhipinti-Liberman & Capraro, 2015).…”