Gender differences in honesty: Groups versus individuals

Abstract

h i g h l i g h t s• We analyze gender effects in the lying behavior of groups and individuals.• We extend the die-rolling experiment of Fischbacher and Föllmi-Heusi (2013).• There are no pronounced gender effects under individual decision-making.• Strong gender effects emerge under joint decision-making in groups.• There is more lying in male groups and mixed groups than in female groups. a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c tExtending the die rolling experiment of Fischbacher and Föllmi-Heusi (2013), we compare gender effects with respect to unethical behavior by individuals and by two-person groups. In contrast to individual decisions, gender matters strongly under group decisions. We find more lying in male groups and mixed groups than in female groups.

Liar Liar: Experimental Evidence of the Effect of Confirmation‐Reports on Dishonesty

“…A common finding in the literature is that males tend to be more dishonest than females (Dreber and Johannesson ; Childs ; Erat ; Muehlheusser, Roider, and Wallmeier ). We explore whether this finding holds in our setting.…”

“…We also add to the extensive literature on lying. Existing studies have explored several important aspects of dishonesty including the role of shame (Greenberg, Smeets, and Zhrakhovska 2015), guilt (Charness and Dufwenberg 2006;Battigalli, Charness, and Dufwenberg 2013), perceived unfairness (Houser, Vetter, and Winter 2012), gender (Dreber and Johannesson 2008;Muehlheusser, Roider, and Wallmeier 2015), magnitude of pay-off (Suri et al 2011;Fischbacher and F€ ollmi-Heusi 2013), time preference (Ruffle and Tobol 2014), education (Ruffle and Tobol 2016), morality (Shu et al 2012), and lying costs more broadly (Gneezy 2005;Abeler, Becker, and Falk 2014;Kajackaite and Gneezy 2017). A common feature of all of these studies is that they ask subjects to make self-reports using blank forms.…”

Dishonesty in health care practice: A behavioral experiment on upcoding in neonatology

“…Although Childs (2012), Gylfason, Arnardottir, and Kristinsson (2013), and Abeler, Becker, and Falk (2014) report no gender differences in dishonest behavior, there is also considerable experimental evidence that women are more honest than men (e.g., Dreber & Johannesson, 2008;Houser et al, 2012;Muehlheusser, Roider, & Wallmeier, 2015). Evidence on the impact of gender on dishonest behavior is rather mixed.…”

Having a bad attitude? The relationship between attitudes and sickness absence

“…If women had a lower aversion towards lying than men, it could be the case that the real attitudes of women were more lenient than that of men. However, as the evidence on the gender difference in lying if anything points towards women being less averse to lying than men (Childs 2012;Dreber and Johannesson 2008;Muehlheusser et al 2015), we are more confident that lying does not confound our results.…”