Studying the likelihood that individuals cheat requires a valid statistical measure of dishonesty. We develop an easy empirical method to measure and compare lying behavior within and across studies to correct for sampling errors. This method estimates the full distribution of lying when agents privately observe the outcome of a random process (e.g., die roll) and can misreport what they observed. It provides a precise estimate of the mean and confidence interval (offering lower and upper bounds on the proportion of people lying) over the full distribution, allowing for a vast range of statistical inferences not generally available with the existing methods.

We investigate how different forms of scrutiny affect dishonesty, using Gneezy’s [Am Econ Rev 95:384–394 (2005)] deception game. We add a third player whose interests are aligned with those of the sender. We find that lying behavior is not sensitive to revealing the sender’s identity to the observer. The option for observers to communicate with the sender, and the option to reveal the sender’s lies to the receiver also do not affect lying behavior. Even more striking, senders whose identity is revealed to their observer do not lie less when their interests are misaligned with those of the observer.

Are people honest about the extent to which they engage in unethical behaviors? We report an experiment examining the relation between self-reported risky unethical tendencies and actual dishonest behavior. Participants’ self-reported risk taking tendencies were assessed using the Domain-Specific Risk-Taking (DOSPERT) questionnaire, while actual self-serving dishonesty was assessed using a private coin tossing task. In this task, participants predicted the outcome of coin tosses, held the predictions in mind, and reported whether their predictions were correct. Thus, the task allowed participants to lie about whether their predictions were correct. We manipulated whether reporting higher correct scores increased (vs. not) participants monetary payoff. Results revealed a positive relation between self-reported unethical risky tendencies and actual dishonesty. The effect was limited to the condition in which dishonesty was self-serving. Our results suggest liars are aware of their dishonest tendencies and are potentially not ashamed of them.

Previous research has established that higher levels of trait Honesty-Humility (HH) are associated with less dishonest behavior in cheating paradigms. However, only imprecise effect size estimates of this HH-cheating link are available. Moreover, evidence is inconclusive on whether other basic personality traits from the HEXACO or Big Five models are associated with unethical decision making and whether such effects have incremental validity beyond HH. We address these issues in a highly powered reanalysis of 16 studies assessing dishonest behavior in an incentivized, one-shot cheating paradigm (N = 5,002). For this purpose, we rely on a newly developed logistic regression approach for the analysis of nested data in cheating paradigms. We also test theoretically derived interactions of HH with other basic personality traits (i.e., Emotionality and Conscientiousness) and situational factors (i.e., the baseline probability of observing a favorable outcome) as well as the incremental validity of HH over demographic characteristics. The results show a medium to large effect of HH (odds ratio = 0.53), which was independent of other personality, situational, or demographic variables. Only one other trait (Big Five Agreeableness) was associated with unethical decision making, although it failed to show any incremental validity beyond HH.

People not only seek to avoid losses or secure gains; they also attempt to create opportunities for obtaining positive outcomes. When distributing money between gambles with equal probabilities, people often invest in turning negative gambles into positive ones, even at a cost of reduced expected value. Results of an experiment revealed that (1) the preference to turn a negative outcome into a positive outcome exists when people’s ability to do so depends on their performance levels (rather than merely on their choice), (2) this preference is amplified when the likelihood to turn negative into positive is high rather than low, and (3) this preference is attenuated when people can lie about their performance levels, allowing them to turn negative into positive not by performing better but rather by lying about how well they performed.

In the light of the potential negative consequences of dishonest behaviors for individuals and societies, researchers from different disciplines have aimed to investigate situation and person factors shaping the occurrence and extent of such behaviors. The present study investigates the roles of a situation factor, the baseline probability of observing a favorable outcome, and a person factor, trait Honesty-Humility from the HEXACO Model of Personality, in shaping dishonest behavior. Next to main effects, a person-situation interaction between these factors was tested. Across three studies with 5,297 participants overall, we find that a higher baseline probability of observing a favorable outcome and lower levels in Honesty-Humility are linked to more dishonest behavior, whereas there was no strong evidence for an interaction between these factors. By testing the assumed effects in two different cheating paradigms, this study additionally allows to disentangle previously found effects of (a) the distance between an observed and the favorable outcome and (b) the baseline probability of observing a favorable outcome.

Though avoiding blame is often a goal of elected officials, there are relatively few empirical examinations of how citizens assign blame during controversies. We are particularly interested in how this process works when an executive has been caught in a lie. Using two survey experiments, we examine whether subordinates can shield executives when they act as the face of a crisis. We first leverage a real-life situation involving the family separation crisis at the US–Mexico border in 2018. Respondents who read that Donald Trump falsely claimed he could not end the practice of family separation disapprove of his dishonesty. Yet this cost disappears when Trump’s then-Secretary of Homeland Security, Kirstjen Nielsen, is the primary official discussed in news stories. We then replicate these findings in a fictional scenario involving a city mayor, showing that the mayor is partially shielded from negative appraisals when the city manager lies on his behalf.