What's in a name? The toll e-signatures take on individual honesty

Chou, Eileen Y.

doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2015.07.010

Cited by 46 publications

(47 citation statements)

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“…More recently, a number of studies have demonstrated that a person's signature is strongly associated with his or her self‐identity (Kettle and Haubl [], Shu et al. [], Chou []) and that narcissists exhibit a desire to distinguish themselves from others (Lee, Gregg, and Park []). Similarly, Ham, Seybert, and Wang [] document a significant positive association between signature size and narcissism for a sample of business graduate students, and Dillon [] finds that subjects who embellish their signatures tend to have significantly higher narcissism scores than those who do not.…”

Section: Related Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…More generally, an individual's signature has long been viewed as an official representation (where simply printing or typing one's name would be insufficient) for authoritatively linking oneself, one's actions, or official compliance with a particular contract or agreement (e.g., tax returns, mortgages, etc.). More recently, a number of studies have demonstrated that a person's signature is strongly associated with his or her self-identity (Kettle and Haubl [2011], Shu et al [2012], Chou [2015]) and that narcissists exhibit a desire to distinguish themselves from others (Lee, Gregg, and Park [2013]). Similarly, Ham, Seybert, and Wang [2017] document a significant positive association between signature size and narcissism for a sample of business graduate students, and Dillon [1988] finds that subjects who embellish their signatures tend to have significantly higher narcissism scores than those who do not.…”

Section: Signature Size and Narcissismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…See, for example, Chou [], Bryan, Adams, and Monin [], Bryan et al. [], Kettle and Haubl [], and Shu et al.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…See also Snyder and Fromkin [], Dillon [], Kettle and Haubl [], Shu et al. [], Lee, Gregg, and Park [], Ham, Seybert, and Wang [], and Chou [].…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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CFO Narcissism and Financial Reporting Quality

Ham

Lang

Seybert

et al. 2017

J of Accounting Research

307

239

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We investigate the effect of CFO narcissism, as measured by signature size, on financial reporting quality. Experimentally, we validate that narcissism predicts misreporting behavior, and that signature size predicts misreporting through its association with narcissism. Empirically, we examine notarized CFO signatures and find CFO narcissism is associated with more earnings management, less timely loss recognition, weaker internal control quality, and a higher probability of restatements. The results are consistent for within‐firm comparisons focusing on CFO changes and are robust to controlling for CFO overconfidence and CEO narcissism. The results highlight the importance of CFO characteristics in the domain of financial reporting decisions.

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Section: Related Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Signature Size and Narcissismmentioning

confidence: 99%

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CFO Narcissism and Financial Reporting Quality

Ham

Lang

Seybert

et al. 2017

J of Accounting Research

307

239

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“…Raffle for $50 (study 1), up to $10 (study 2), $0.10 per reported answer (study 3 and 4), $0.30 per reported answer (5), and up to $42 for reported answer and reported expenses Amount of baseline cheating Study 3 (lowest cheating rate, 23% in the control group) to study 6 (highest cheating rate, 56% in the control group) Type of reporting form Regular participation form where generally there is no expectation of an honesty prompt (studies 1-5) vs. official-looking tax form where in naturalistic context there is a general expectation of an honesty prompt (study 6) **Because previous research has shown differences between different types of signatures (11), we used handwritten on paper, online typed, and online trackpad signatures. None of these features affected our key results: being asked to sign at the top of a form did not reduce dishonesty.…”

Section: Potential Moderatormentioning

confidence: 99%

Signing at the beginning versus at the end does not decrease dishonesty

Kristal

Whillans

Bazerman

et al. 2020

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Honest reporting is essential for society to function well. However, people frequently lie when asked to provide information, such as misrepresenting their income to save money on taxes. A landmark finding published in PNAS [L. L. (2012)] provided evidence for a simple way of encouraging honest reporting: asking people to sign a veracity statement at the beginning instead of at the end of a self-report form. Since this finding was published, various government agencies have adopted this practice. However, in this project, we failed to replicate this result. Across five conceptual replications (n = 4,559) and one highly powered, preregistered, direct replication (n = 1,235) conducted with the authors of the original paper, we observed no effect of signing first on honest reporting. Given the policy applications of this result, it is important to update the scientific record regarding the veracity of these results.nudge | policy-making | morality | replication F ive of the seven authors of this manuscript conducted research published in PNAS (1), showing that signing a veracity statement at the beginning of a tax form (in two small-sample laboratory studies) as well as an insurance audit form (in a field experiment), as opposed to the standard procedure of signing it at the end of the form, decreases dishonest reporting of personal information. The original paper also found that signing first reduces dishonesty by making ethics more salient, although this effect was demonstrated only in one small-sample laboratory experiment. Three of the authors (Kristal, Whillans, and Bazerman) attempted to extend what we thought was the critical finding from that PNAS paper: simply signing a veracity statement at the beginning instead of at the end of a task in which individuals can cheat and report a higher performance to earn more money reduces dishonest reporting. In particular, Kristal, Whillans, and Bazerman initiated a new project on inducing honesty online by signing first versus last. However, despite repeated attempts, Kristal, Whillans, and Bazerman did not find that signing a veracity statement at the beginning of a task reduced dishonesty in comparison to signing at the end. As a consequence of these null effects, together with the original authors of the PNAS paper, the authors then set out to conduct a direct replication of the first laboratory experiment described in the PNAS paper (1).There are several reasons why Kristal, Whillans, and Bazerman continued to pursue this line of research and why we eventually conducted a direct replication. The original finding has been cited 345 times in peer-reviewed publications, and governments around the world have spent time and effort operationalizing this finding in various policy domains. We are also aware of two published failures of signing first to increase tax collection. The most relevant is an experiment that was conducted in a local authority in the United Kingdom (2). In this experiment, the intervention directly tested the veracity statement and signature require...

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