Bad Boys: How Criminal Identity Salience Affects Rule Violation

Abstract

We conducted an experiment with 182 inmates from a maximum security prison to analyze the impact of criminal identity salience on cheating. The results show that inmates cheat more when we exogenously render their criminal identity more salient. This effect is specific to individuals who have a criminal identity, because an additional placebo experiment shows that regular citizens do not become more dishonest in response to crime-related reminders. Moreover, our experimental measure of cheating correlates with inmates' offences against in-prison regulation. Together, these findings suggest that criminal identity salience plays a crucial role in rule violating behaviour. Review of Economic Studies, forthcoming AbstractWe conducted an experiment with 182 inmates from a maximum security prison to analyze the impact of criminal identity salience on cheating. The results show that inmates cheat more when we exogenously render their criminal identity more salient. This effect is specific to individuals who have a criminal identity, because an additional placebo experiment shows that regular citizens do not become more dishonest in response to crime-related reminders. Moreover, our experimental measure of cheating correlates with inmates' offenses against in-prison regulation. Together, these findings suggest that criminal identity salience plays a crucial role in rule violating behavior.JEL classification: K00, C93, K14, K42, Z10

Increasing honesty in humans with noninvasive brain stimulation

“…Moreover, numerical simulations and Bayesian analyses were used to ascertain that our findings are highly unlikely to reflect purely random variations in the outcomes of our specific sample. A detailed description of the sample, experimental procedures, and statistical analyses is given in SI Appendix (21).…”

“…During stimulation, we measured cheating using an incentivized and unobtrusive die-rolling task (10,11) that has been shown to predict rule-violating behavior reliably in real-world settings (21,22). The die-rolling task was embedded in a battery of control tasks (SI Appendix) that served two purposes: First, they allowed us to measure and control for other aspects of choice behavior that may be affected by the stimulation (23)(24)(25)(26)(27).…”

The use of identity primes to explain behavioral differences between groups: A methodological note

“…Both Van Hoorn (2015b) and Vranka and Houdek (2015), for instance, propose that priming bankers' professionals identity activates a negative stereotype about the profession's honesty, which, in turn, is likely to have a negative effect on honesty in a laboratory game. As Cohn et al (2013, p. 1) put it in an early version of the study published as Cohn et al (2015): "a person's identity can change if society treats him or her as a criminal, leading to the adoption of behavioral propensities consistent with the criminal label." Meanwhile, it seems unlikely that the treatment effect of making inmates' criminal identity salient reported by Cohn et al (2013Cohn et al ( , 2015 is a cultural phenomenon that is caused by the specific culture that exists among inmates.…”

“…As Cohn et al (2013, p. 1) put it in an early version of the study published as Cohn et al (2015): "a person's identity can change if society treats him or her as a criminal, leading to the adoption of behavioral propensities consistent with the criminal label." Meanwhile, it seems unlikely that the treatment effect of making inmates' criminal identity salient reported by Cohn et al (2013Cohn et al ( , 2015 is a cultural phenomenon that is caused by the specific culture that exists among inmates.…”

“…(2014) and Cohn et al (2015). The former study primed bankers with their professional identity, finding that this prime increased cheating in a coin tossing game.…”