Society can have a strong influence on how honest we are

The societies we live in can have a direct influence on how dishonest we are, according to a new study held in 23 countries which found that people from more corrupt societies were likely to be more dishonest than those from societies where rule-breaking is frowned upon.
The experiment was conducted in nations which differed strongly in levels of corruption. More than 2,500 people were tested to see how honest they would be in a situation where people could lie without being found out, researchers said.
In the experiment conducted in 23 countries, people were seated in an isolated booth and asked to roll a die twice. They were then asked to report back on what the first number was. They were told that they would receive a cash incentive depending on how high the number was that they rolled.

"This was a simple experiment where you asked participants to report the first roll of the die. If people were honest, then all numbers would be equally likely," said Simon Gaechter from University of Nottingham in the UK.
"They had financial incentives to report the highest number. This is completely private, no one can see and they get paid, no questions asked. It is impossible to determine if they are lying, unless they tell you," said Gaechter.
Researchers observed that higher numbers would be much more likely than they would be if everybody reported the true number rolled. However, they did not observe that everybody reported the highest number, which would earn the most money.

"What was immediately clear from the results was that people, despite some apparent cheating, are surprisingly honest all over the world given that in this experiment they could cheat maximally with impunity," said Gaechter.

Despite the lack of blatant lying however, people everywhere have a tendency to 'cheat a little bit'. For example, people are asked to roll the die twice, but instead of reporting the first number as requested, they will give you the highest number of the two rolls, researchers said.
"But there are interesting differences across countries - people from societies where there was high levels of corruption - political fraud, political embezzlement and cheating etc, reported higher die rolls (that is, they were more dishonest) than people in a society, such as the UK, where there is little corruption," said Gaechter.

"People benchmark their dishonesty with what they think is justifiable in their society and what they are surrounded by in their daily lives," he added.
Weak institutions, which allow for a lot of corruption and other rule violations, not only have adverse economic consequences on societies, but also affect people's intrinsic honesty, researchers said.
The findings were published in the journal Nature.