RETRACTED: Signing at the beginning makes ethics salient and decreases dishonest self-reports in comparison to signing at the end

Abstract

Many written forms required by businesses and governments rely on honest reporting. Proof of honest intent is typically provided through signature at the end of, e.g., tax returns or insurance policy forms. Still, people sometimes cheat to advance their financial selfinterests-at great costs to society. We test an easy-to-implement method to discourage dishonesty: signing at the beginning rather than at the end of a self-report, thereby reversing the order of the current practice. Using laboratory and field experiments, we find that signing before-rather than after-the opportunity to cheat makes ethics salient when they are needed most and significantly reduces dishonesty.morality | nudge | policy-making | fraud T he annual tax gap between actual and claimed taxes due in the United States amounts to roughly $345 billion. The Internal Revenue Service estimates more than half this amount is due to individuals misrepresenting their income and deductions (1). Insurance is another domain burdened by the staggering cost of individual dishonesty; the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud estimated that the overall magnitude of insurance fraud in the United States totaled $80 billion in 2006 (2). The problem with curbing dishonesty in behaviors such as filing tax returns, submitting insurance claims, claiming business expenses or reporting billable hours is that they primarily rely on self-monitoring in lieu of external policing. The current paper proposes and tests an efficient and simple measure to reduce such dishonesty.Whereas recent findings have successfully identified an intervention to curtail dishonesty through introducing a code of conduct in contexts where previously there was none (3, 4), many important transactions already require signatures to confirm compliance to an expected standard of honesty. Nevertheless, as significant economic losses demonstrate (1, 2), the current practice appears insufficient in countering self-interested motivations to falsify numbers. We propose that a simple change of the signature location could lead to significant improvements in compliance.Even subtle cues that direct attention toward oneself can lead to surprisingly powerful effects on subsequent moral behavior (5-7). Signing is one way to activate attention to the self (8). However, typically, a signature is requested at the end. Building on Duval and Wicklund's theory of objective self-awareness (9), we propose and test that signing one's name before reporting information (rather than at the end) makes morality accessible right before it is most needed, which will consequently promote honest reporting. We propose that with the current practice of signing after reporting information, the "damage" has already been done: immediately after lying, individuals quickly engage in various mental justifications, reinterpretations, and other "tricks" such as suppressing thoughts about their moral standards that allow them to maintain a positive self-image despite having lied (3, 10, 11). That is, once an individual has lied, it is too ...

Please be Honest and Provide Evidence: Deterrents of Deception in an Online Insurance Fraud Context

“…To sum up, the current study differs from Shu et al (2012) in two ways. First, we examined the relative efficacy of two deterrence factors in one experiment (evidence and honesty), whereas Shu et al only examined honesty.…”

“…In two studies (a field study and an experiment), participants signed a written honesty statement prior to completing a form ‘I promise that the information I am providing is true’ or did so at the end of the form or not at all (Shu, Mazar, Gino, Ariely, & Bazerman, 2012). In the ‘honesty statement prior to the form condition’, participants in the field study admitted to have driven more miles in their car in the previous year (an acknowledgement that results in a higher premium), and participants in the laboratory experiment claimed less income and less travel expenses than participants in the other conditions (see also Ariely [2012] for a discussion of the findings).…”

“…Participants were presented with a list of word fragments and asked to fill in the blanks to make complete words by using the first word that came to mind (Shu et al, 2012). Three of these fragments (_ _ R A L, _ I _ _ _ E, and E _ _ _ C _ _) could potentially be completed by words related to ethics (moral, virtue and ethical).…”

“…Those in the honesty statement condition came up with more words indicating moral standards ( M  = 1.40) than a control group ( M  = 0.87). Although insurers and tax authorities typically ask claimants to sign an honesty statement, they ask them to do this after the claimant completed the form rather than before (Shu et al, 2012). They do this for legal reasons as the statement and signature explicitly links the claimant with the form she or he just completed.…”

“…They do this for legal reasons as the statement and signature explicitly links the claimant with the form she or he just completed. The honesty declaration, however, only yielded an effect if it is made before completing the claim (Shu et al, 2012). …”