The relationship between attention allocation and cheating

Abstract

Little is known about the relationship between attention allocation and dishonesty. The goal of the present work was to address this issue using the eyetracking methodology. We developed a novel task in which participants could honestly report seeing a particular card and lose money, or they could falsely report not seeing the card and not lose money. When participants cheated, they allocated less attention (i.e., shorter fixation durations and fewer fixations) to the card than when they behaved honestly. Our results suggest that when dishonesty pays, shifting attention away from undesirable information can serve as a self-deception strategy that allows individuals to serve their self-interests while maintaining a positive self-concept.

Why Do We Lie? A Practical Guide to the Dishonesty Literature

“…Another related example, adopted by Pittarello et al . (), involves indicating when a certain card suit appears on a screen.…”

“…Bounded ethicality theory suggests that, in fact, people often do not recognize that they are acting immorally in the decision moment or they strategically avoid processing the fact that the choice might be unethical. Recently, eye‐tracking tools have been introduced to study whether bounded ethicality and moral blind‐spot strategies are physically used to lie and misbehave (Pittarello et al ., ). People seem to strategically avoid looking at information that will prevent them from being able to tell a self‐serving lie (Pittarello et al ., ).…”

“…Recently, eye‐tracking tools have been introduced to study whether bounded ethicality and moral blind‐spot strategies are physically used to lie and misbehave (Pittarello et al ., ). People seem to strategically avoid looking at information that will prevent them from being able to tell a self‐serving lie (Pittarello et al ., ). Furthermore, Fosgaard et al .…”

Information Avoidance

“…In a lab experiment on dishonesty, Pittarello et al (2016) showed participants two cards from a deck and asked them to indicate whether one of the cards was a Joker. Each time they reported a Joker, they lost EUR 1 from their endowment of EUR 60.…”

Omission and compromise: The sacredness of moral foundations in political groups in Italy

“…Active and passive transgressions are treated differently by the law (Feinberg, 1984) and are judged and weighed differently by spectators (e.g., Baron & Ritov, 2004;Spranca, Minsk, & Baron, 1991), producing different effects of social desirability. For instance, participants are more likely to serve their self-interest by refraining from telling the truth (lie of omission) than by deliberately lying (lie of commission) when they face the temptation to benefit from dishonesty (Pittarello, Motro, Rubaltelli, & Pluchino, 2016).…”