The bad consequences of teamwork

Who Deals With the Devil? Interdependence, Personality, and Corrupted Collaboration

“…In the aligned outcomes condition, "the proportion of reported doubles was 489% higher than the expected proportion assuming honesty, 48% higher than when individuals rolled and reported alone, and 96% higher than when lies only benefited the other player" (p. 10651). This general importance of corrupted collaboration has not only been replicated by the same research group (Soraperra et al, 2017), but also, though with smaller effect sizes, in recent preregistered studies by others (Wouda, Bijlstra, Frankenhuis, & Wigboldus, 2017).…”

“…Another future extension might be to compare the impact of cooperation with honest and brazen players on dishonesty to the influence of mere exposure to honest and brazen behavior on cheating behavior. In a recent study, Soraperra et al (2017) found that although in the aligned outcomes condition, there were fewer honest dyads than in the normal exposure condition (where participants observed behavior of another player, but their outcomes were not aligned with each other), the average dishonesty was similar in the two conditions. Hence, future studies could investigate the difference between actual cooperation with fully brazen or honest partners and only being exposed to fully honest and dishonest behavior.…”

“…Sequential Dyadic Die-Rolling Task. As outlined above, the sequential dyadic dierolling task involves two players: Player A first rolls a die in secret and reports the outcome, and then Player B, knowing Player's A reported outcome, rolls a die in secret and reports the outcome (Soraperra et al, 2017;Weisel & Shalvi, 2015;Wouda et al, 2017). Importantly, in the aligned outcome condition used herein, both players gain additional payoff (in addition to their flat fee) if both players report the same number; thus, Player B has an incentive to report the same number as Player A.…”

Ethical Free Riding: When Honest People Find Dishonest Partners

“…Indeed, unethical behavior, such as helping someone else cheat on an exam, can be learned from observing peers, colleagues, and even strangers (O’Fallon & Butterfield, 2012). Merely seeing someone lie facilitates imitation of such behavior (Kocher, Schudy, & Spantig, 2017; Soraperra et al, 2017), being exposed to norm violations increases subsequent norm violation (Keizer, Lindenberg, & Steg, 2008), and the more prevalent corruption is in a country, the more likely people from that country are to violate rules (Gächter & Schulz, 2016). Furthermore, because people do not like to be excluded (Kurzban & Leary, 2001), and are even willing to violate rules that benefit the group to avoid being excluded (Thau, Derfler-Rozin, Pitesa, Mitchell, & Pillutla, 2015), honest people might adapt their behavior and start lying to prevent their dishonest partners from leaving them.…”

Rule Following Mitigates Collaborative Cheating and Facilitates the Spreading of Honesty Within Groups

“…Unethical behavior such as cheating appears particularly prominent when people operate in groups rather than alone ( Cohen et al, 2009 ; Conrads et al, 2013 ; Falk & Fischbacher, 2002 ; Gino et al, 2013 ; Kocher et al, 2017 ). For example, dishonesty increased after witnessing one group member ostentatiously cheat for personal gain, leading to a “social” slippery slope of increasing dishonesty ( Gino et al, 2009 ; see also Diekmann et al, 2015 ; Köbis et al, 2017 ; Soraperra et al, 2017 ). Likewise, Weisel and Shalvi (2015) observed that individuals systematically coordinate cheating behavior.…”