Cognitive control increases honesty in cheaters but cheating in those who are honest

Speer, Sebastian; Smidts, Ale; Boksem, Maarten A. S.

doi:10.1073/pnas.2003480117

Cited by 59 publications

(102 citation statements)

References 79 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Using the spot-the-difference task to study trial-by-trial cheating behavior we previously found ( Speer et al, 2020 ) that the effect of cognitive control depends on a participants’ inclination to be honest or dishonest, in other words, on their moral default. The follow-up, analysis presented here revealed that, whereas the level of average activation across all voxels in the IFG is the same for honest participants and cheaters when engaging in a non-habitual (dis)honest decision, the information encoded in the distributed pattern across voxels differs.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Linear contrasts were computed between honest and cheating decisions. Neural patterns were then extracted from the resulting t-maps (cheat > honest & honest > cheat) using the left IFG mask derived from the conjunction analysis between the neurosynth map for cognitive control and the results from the second level analysis investigating the neural mechanisms underlying the decision to cheat in Speer et al (2020) . Due to the fact that participants engaged in spontaneous, voluntary, and deliberate cheating, the ratio of dishonest and honest trials was not perfectly balanced for most of the participants.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In a recent study ( Speer et al, 2020 ), we found that areas associated with cognitive control, particularly the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), helped dishonest participants to be honest, whereas it enabled cheating for those who are generally honest. These findings suggest that honest participants needed cognitive control to overcome their inclination for being honest in order to cheat, whereas cheaters had to exert control to override their greedy tendencies in order to be honest.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“… There is a long-standing debate regarding the cognitive nature of (dis)honesty: Is honesty an automatic response or does it require willpower in the form of cognitive control in order to override an automatic dishonest response. In a recent study ( Speer et al, 2020 ), we proposed a reconciliation of these opposing views by showing that activity in areas associated with cognitive control, particularly the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), helped dishonest participants to be honest, whereas it enabled cheating for honest participants. These findings suggest that cognitive control is not needed to be honest or dishonest per se but that it depends on an individual’s moral default.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Different Neural Mechanisms Underlie Non-habitual Honesty and Non-habitual Cheating

2021

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

There is a long-standing debate regarding the cognitive nature of (dis)honesty: Is honesty an automatic response or does it require willpower in the form of cognitive control in order to override an automatic dishonest response. In a recent study (Speer et al., 2020), we proposed a reconciliation of these opposing views by showing that activity in areas associated with cognitive control, particularly the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), helped dishonest participants to be honest, whereas it enabled cheating for honest participants. These findings suggest that cognitive control is not needed to be honest or dishonest per se but that it depends on an individual’s moral default. However, while our findings provided insights into the role of cognitive control in overriding a moral default, they did not reveal whether overriding honest default behavior (non-habitual dishonesty) is the same as overriding dishonest default behavior (non-habitual honesty) at the neural level. This speaks to the question as to whether cognitive control mechanisms are domain-general or may be context specific. To address this, we applied multivariate pattern analysis to compare neural patterns of non-habitual honesty to non-habitual dishonesty. We found that these choices are differently encoded in the IFG, suggesting that engaging cognitive control to follow the norm (that cheating is wrong) fundamentally differs from applying control to violate this norm.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Different Neural Mechanisms Underlie Non-habitual Honesty and Non-habitual Cheating

2021

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Cognitive and executive functions (particularly cognitive control 78 ) supported by the PFC play a pivotal role in human deceptive behavior: correlation analyses carried out in the reviewed articles [65][66][67] suggest that there is a relationship between dysfunctional cognitive/executive function and decreased dishonesty. However, further research is needed to clarify the exact cognitive mechanisms (e.g., failure in inhibiting true responses and producing deceptive ones)-and their possible interaction with the motivational deficits previously described-underlying impaired deception ability in PD patients.…”

Section: Conclusion and Future Perspectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Human moral decision-making through the lens of Parkinson’s disease

Ponsi

Scattolin

Villa

et al. 2021

npj Parkinsons Dis.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by the loss of dopaminergic neurons in the basal ganglia (BG) and thalamocortical circuitry. While defective motor control has long been considered the defining symptom of PD, mounting evidence indicates that the BG are fundamentally important for a multitude of cognitive, emotional, and motivational processes in addition to motor function. Here, we review alterations in moral decision-making in people with PD, specifically in the context of deceptive behavior. We report that PD patients exhibit two opposite behavioral patterns: hyper- and hypo-honesty. The hyper-honest subgroup engages in deception less often than matched controls, even when lying is associated with a monetary payoff. This behavioral pattern seems to be linked to dopaminergic hypo-activity, implying enhanced harm avoidance, risk aversion, non-impulsivity, and reduced reward sensitivity. On the contrary, the hypo-honest subgroup—often characterized by the additional diagnosis of impulse control disorders (ICDs) and dopamine dysregulation syndrome (DDS)—deceives more often than both PD patients without ICDs/DDS and controls. This behavioral pattern appears to be associated with dopaminergic hyperactivity, which underpins enhanced novelty-seeking, risk-proneness, impulsivity, and reward sensitivity. We posit that these two complementary behavioral patterns might be related to dysfunction of the dopaminergic reward system, leading to reduced or enhanced motivation to deceive. Only a few studies have directly investigated moral decision-making in PD and other neurodegenerative disorders affecting the BG, and further research on the causal role of subcortical structures in shaping moral behavior is needed.

show abstract

The power of the lens: Filming increases honesty in children as young as five

Sai,

Bi,

et al. 2023

Behavioral Decision Making

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

As early as 5 years of age, children begin to manage their reputations strategically. We investigated whether the reputation concern elicited by filming affected children's mental cheating, which is a form of cheating that cannot be detected even if someone else is watching. During the test, the experimenter was in the room with children, and we operationalized reputational cues as whether the video camera was actively recording or not. We compared the self‐reported accuracy of a filmed group versus a non‐filmed group in a mental cheating game, under two motivational contexts: self‐interest and other‐interest. A total of 320 children aged 3 to 6 years played a mind game in which they were asked to predict the outcome of a dice roll and to report whether their prediction was correct. We found that 5‐ to 6‐year‐olds were less likely to cheat for their self‐interests when being filmed than when not being filmed. However, filming did not reduce 5‐ to 6‐year‐olds' other‐interested cheating. Furthermore, we found that filming did not influence the self‐interested or other‐interested cheating of 3‐ to 4‐year‐old children. This study highlights how reputation concern elicited by filming motivates children to appear honest to others, even in purely mental cheating scenarios. Additionally, our results suggest that young children are sophisticated in their early reputation management and that prosocial justifications can alleviate concerns about dishonesty.

show abstract

Cognitive control increases honesty in cheaters but cheating in those who are honest

Cited by 59 publications

References 79 publications

Different Neural Mechanisms Underlie Non-habitual Honesty and Non-habitual Cheating

Different Neural Mechanisms Underlie Non-habitual Honesty and Non-habitual Cheating

Human moral decision-making through the lens of Parkinson’s disease

The power of the lens: Filming increases honesty in children as young as five

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About