TY - JOUR
T1 - Committed (dis) honesty: A systematic meta-analytic review of the divergent effects of social commitment to individuals or honesty oaths on dishonest behavior
AU - Zickfeld, Janis
AU - Karg, Simon Tobias Schulz
AU - Engen, Sebastian Scott
AU - Gonzalez, Anna-Sofia R
AU - Michael, John
AU - Mitkidis, Panagiotis
PY - 2024/4/15
Y1 - 2024/4/15
N2 - People feel committed to other individuals, groups, organizations, or moral norms in many contexts of everyday life. Such social commitment can lead to positive outcomes, such as increased job satisfaction or relationship longevity; yet, there can also be detrimental effects to feeling committed. Recent high-profile cases of fraud or corruption in companies like Enron or Volkswagen are likely influenced by strong commitment to the organization or coworkers. Although social commitment might increase dishonest behavior, there is little systematic knowledge about when and how this may occur. In the present project, we reviewed 20,988 articles, focusing on studies that experimentally manipulated social commitment and measured dishonest behavior. We retained 445 effect sizes from 121 articles featuring a total of 91,683 participants across 33 countries. Wefound no evidence that social commitment increases or reduces dishonest behavior in general. Nonetheless, we did find evidence that the effect strongly depends on the target of the commitment. Feeling committed to other individuals or groups reduces honest behavior (g = −0.17 [−0.24, −0.11]), whereas feeling committed to honesty norms through honesty oaths or pledges increases honest behavior (g = 0.27 [0.19, 0.36]). The analysis identified several moderating variables and detected some degree of publication bias across effects. Our findings highlight the diverging effects of different forms of social commitment on dishonest behavior and suggest a combination of the different forms of commitment could be a possible means to combat corruption and dishonest behavior in the organizational context.
AB - People feel committed to other individuals, groups, organizations, or moral norms in many contexts of everyday life. Such social commitment can lead to positive outcomes, such as increased job satisfaction or relationship longevity; yet, there can also be detrimental effects to feeling committed. Recent high-profile cases of fraud or corruption in companies like Enron or Volkswagen are likely influenced by strong commitment to the organization or coworkers. Although social commitment might increase dishonest behavior, there is little systematic knowledge about when and how this may occur. In the present project, we reviewed 20,988 articles, focusing on studies that experimentally manipulated social commitment and measured dishonest behavior. We retained 445 effect sizes from 121 articles featuring a total of 91,683 participants across 33 countries. Wefound no evidence that social commitment increases or reduces dishonest behavior in general. Nonetheless, we did find evidence that the effect strongly depends on the target of the commitment. Feeling committed to other individuals or groups reduces honest behavior (g = −0.17 [−0.24, −0.11]), whereas feeling committed to honesty norms through honesty oaths or pledges increases honest behavior (g = 0.27 [0.19, 0.36]). The analysis identified several moderating variables and detected some degree of publication bias across effects. Our findings highlight the diverging effects of different forms of social commitment on dishonest behavior and suggest a combination of the different forms of commitment could be a possible means to combat corruption and dishonest behavior in the organizational context.
KW - cheating
KW - commitment
KW - dishonesty
KW - ethical behavior
KW - meta-analysis
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85195227084&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1037/bul0000429
DO - 10.1037/bul0000429
M3 - Review
C2 - 38619478
SN - 0033-2909
VL - 150
SP - 586
EP - 620
JO - Psychological Bulletin
JF - Psychological Bulletin
IS - 5
ER -