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

Abstract

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...

Digital signatures: a tool to prevent and predict dishonesty?

“…As such, policy makers should think twice before implementing digital signatures, particularly those that require more effort and are detested by users. Given our null results and those of other signature honesty studies (Kettle et al 2017;Kristal et al 2020) a true effect is unlikely to exist. We therefore suggest not dedicating future research to signature interventions for honesty.…”

“…Since conduction of our digital signature experiments, a series of signature replication experiments has been published (Kristal et al 2020). In line with our research and that of Kettle et al (2017), a signature honesty effect could not be replicated.…”

“…Behavior of those not signing may be quite different from those that do. Future research may be able to avoid this potential bias by increasing participation pay to a great enough extent (which may become quite costly when aiming for a sufficient sample size) or performing an experiment in a setting where signing is mandatory and self-selection is not possible (e.g., in a field experiment in cooperation with a governmental organization).Yet, taking into account the work of Kristal et al (2020), it seems unlikely that cancellation hindered us from finding a positive effect. Cancellation does show that digital signatures, particularly those that require more effort, are detested by users.…”

Pre‐registration: Why and How

“…This problem is not unique to a particular field or subfield. It plagues all of the social sciences, including the field of consumer psychology (e.g., Kristal et al, 2020; Simmons & Nelson, 2019; Verschuere et al, 2018; Ziano et al, 2020).…”

Honesty pledges for the behaviorally-based regulation of dishonesty

“…However, the notion that signing reduces unethicality by invoking moral values lacks additional empirical support. First, a more recent study failed to replicate the findings in a laboratory experiment (Kristal et al, 2020) and concluded that merely changing the position of a signature on a form (from bottom to top) does not, in itself, reduce dishonesty. Furthermore, the idea for the "signing-at-the-beginning" intervention relied also on a previous study by Mazar, Amir, and Ariely (2008), which claimed that asking people to recall the Ten Commandments reduced cheating in a similar laboratory task.…”