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Self-Deception 1 Running Head: SELF-DECEPTION The Decay and Prevention of Self-Deception Zoë Chance Yale University Francesca Gino & Michael I. Norton Harvard University Dan Ariely Duke University We thank Don Moore for providing the trivia questions used in these studies. Correspondence should be addressed to Zoë Chance, Yale School of Management, 135 Prospect St L-15, New Haven, CT 06511, [email protected], phone 857-891-5013, fax (203) 815-1557.

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Self-Deception 1

Running Head: SELF-DECEPTION

The Decay and Prevention of Self-Deception

Zoë Chance

Yale University

Francesca Gino & Michael I. Norton

Harvard University

Dan Ariely

Duke University

We thank Don Moore for providing the trivia questions used in these studies. Correspondence

should be addressed to Zoë Chance, Yale School of Management, 135 Prospect St L-15, New

Haven, CT 06511, [email protected], phone 857-891-5013, fax (203) 815-1557.

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Self-Deception 2

Abstract

People demonstrate an impressive ability to engage in self-deception, distorting their negative

behavior to reflect positively on themselves – for example, by cheating on tests and attributing

their improved performance to their own genius. Given the costs of self-deception to both

individuals and organizations, we explore two means by which self-deception can be decreased:

natural decay and a behavioral intervention. We show that self-deception diminishes over time

when self-deceivers are repeatedly confronted with evidence of their true ability (Study 1);

importantly, however, this “learning” fails to make them less susceptible to future self-deception

(Study 2). Given this stickiness of self-deception, we test a behavioral intervention in which we

introduce barriers to self-deception – literally, by making it more difficult to access test answers

in order to cheat – which decreases self-deception (Study 3). Taken together, these studies offer

insight into when and how self-deception can be ameliorated.

Keywords: self-deception, cheating, self-enhancement, debiasing, self-perception, delusion

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Self-Deception 3

The Decay and Prevention of Self-Deception

Nothing is easier than self-deceit. For what each

man wishes, that he also believes to be true.

Demosthenes (384–322 BC)

During the California power crisis orchestrated by Enron and other energy companies –

which cost the state some $30 billion – Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling blamed the situation on state

government, defending his firm to PBS’s FrontLine: “We are the good guys… We are on the

side of the angels.” Prior to its collapse, Enron had been voted the most innovative of Fortune’s

“most admired companies” for six years in a row, and was the largest on Fortune’s list of 50

fastest-growing firms. Even after Enron had declared bankruptcy and Skilling been indicted,

Skilling testified at a Congressional hearing, “I was immensely proud of what we

accomplished. We believed that we were changing an industry, creating jobs, helping resuscitate

a stagnant energy sector, and… trying to save consumers and small businesses billions of dollars

each year. We believed fiercely in what we were doing” (Enron, 2005).

While a first reaction may be to question whether Skilling is simply blatantly lying, we

explore the notion that despite the unethical behavior of his firm, Skilling may have truly

believed that he – and his company – were not just not doing harm, but actually doing good.

Skilling may have engaged in self-deception, the process by which people involved in negative

behavior go beyond merely explaining their actions away and come to believe that their poor

behavior reflects well on them. In one recent investigation, for example, people given the

opportunity to cheat on tests came to believe that they were smarter people, and this self-

deception persisted even when they were given incentives to undo it, such that self-deception

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Self-Deception 4

proved costly (Chance, Norton, Gino, & Ariely, 2011). Similar instances of self-deception are

quite common in organizations. For example, managers may come to view the aggressive or

even unethical strategies they used to increase profits as evidence of their creativity and tenacity

in getting the job done – such that their bad behavior ironically makes them rate their managerial

skills even more highly.

Self-deception can not only harm the self-deceived individual but cause collateral

damage as well – even facilitating bankruptcies of firms, states, and affected individuals – but

little research has explored how it might be prevented or ameliorated. Recent research in

behavioral ethics and moral psychology has examined the conditions under which people engage

in unethical behavior and deception and has identified various factors that exacerbate dishonesty

(e.g., Schweitzer, Ordonez, & Douma, 2004; Tenbrunsel & Messick, 2004; Tenbrunsel,

Diekmann, Wade-Benzoni, & Bazerman, 2010).1 We contribute to this body of work by

examining not deception but self-deception, exploring the psychology of how this costly

tendency can be reduced.

Clinging to a Positive Self-view

The notion that people tend to see themselves through rose-tinted glasses has been

explored in a number of research paradigms. People demonstrate a tendency to self-enhance:

most individuals are unable to see themselves through any lens other than a positive one

(Dunning, Leuenberger, & Sherman, 1995). Individuals routinely inflate their current standing

when evaluating themselves on positive attributes such as intelligence, agreeableness, ability or

even ethicality, distorting self-appraisals in order to maintain the most favorable self-view

1 Following prior research (e.g., Jones, 1991), throughout the paper we use the words “unethical,” “immoral,” and “dishonest” interchangeably.

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Self-Deception 5

(Alicke, 1985; Taylor & Brown, 1988). Much of the empirical work on biased self-evaluations

has explored the ways in which people perceive themselves to be better than those around them,

from research demonstrating that the overwhelming majority of people see themselves as “better

than average” on a variety of traits (e.g., Alicke, Klotz, Breitenbecher, Yurak, & Vredenburg,

1995) – for example, 94 percent of college professors rated themselves as “above average” Cross

(1977) – to research showing that people see themselves as less susceptible than others to serious

accidents and major illnesses (Weinstein, 1980). In addition to overestimating themselves

compared to their peers, research has also shown that people are frequently motivated to

overestimate their own actual abilities, viewing themselves as better than they truly are (e.g.,

Burson, Larrick, & Klayman, 2006). This upward shift in evaluations of the current self reflects a

fundamental human motive to enhance and maintain a positive self-concept (Greenwald, 1980;

Sedikides & Strube, 1997).

Similarly, research on motivated reasoning has identified several means by which people

maintain positive self-views and ignore or explain away negative information about themselves

(Kunda, 1990; Pyzczynski & Greenberg, 1987). People tend to interpret information in ways that

confirm preexisting beliefs and attitudes about the self (e.g., Lord, Ross, & Lepper, 1979; Ditto

& Lopez, 1992; Swann, Stein-Seroussi, & Giesler, 1992) and about others (e.g., Darley & Gross,

1983; Schaller, 1992). Similarly, people can display creativity in justifying and rationalizing

their questionable behavior and decisions (e.g., Gino & Ariely, 2012; Norton, Vandello, &

Darley, 2004)

Judging oneself as generally better than others indicates an overoptimistic bias, and

motivated reasoning allows people to maintain their preferred self-views, but neither process is

fully self-deceptive. In our view, self-deception is the special case in which negative behavior is

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Self-Deception 6

not only explained away (e.g., “I am better than others in general” or “everyone does this”) but

actually leads people to see themselves more positively than they did before the self-deception

occured. Motivated reasoning and better-than-average effects describe situations in which

individuals hold favored beliefs. Self-deception is a special case in which the individuals holding

these positive beliefs should know better – because they just behaved poorly – helping to explain

how people like Skilling can shift from the knowledge that Enron committed fraud for personal

gain to believing they were “on the side of the angels.”

Decreasing Self-Deception

Previous research exploring self-deception shows that individuals who cheat not only

give themselves full credit for their success, but expect continued success in the future. Consider

the paradigm developed by Chance et al. (2011). Participants take an initial test, with some being

given access to the answers, then all participants predict their scores on a future test – for which

no answer key will be available. Participants with access to the answers perform better on the

first test than those without the answers; most importantly, those given the answers deceive

themselves into thinking their superior performance owed to their ability. As a result, they

predict continued superior performance in the second test – a measure of self-deception.

Chance et al. (2011) showed that incentivizing people to avoid self-deception was

ineffective: even when those who cheated on a test were paid to predict their future performance

accurately, self-deception persisted, leading to inflated predictions which proved costly.

However, a different type of influence did affect self-deception. When cheaters were given

special recognition for their high performance scores – much like Enron traders recognized by

Fortune for their success – they became even more self-deceptive. Thus the previous research

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Self-Deception 7

suggests that self-deception is sticky (it persists over time, from one event to another) and can be

exacerbated. In the present research, we examine how self-deception might decay over time (the

extent to which the stickiness “sticks”) and an intervention designed not to exacerbate but

ameliorate self-deception.

Although methods for reducing self-deception have not been explored previously, a

number of studies have investigated moderators of unethical behavior more generally. Cheating

increases under the following conditions: when individuals lack the cognitive resources to resist

temptation (Christian & Ellis, 2011; Gino, Schweitzer, Mead, & Ariely, 2010; Mead,

Baumeister, Gino, Schweitzer, & Ariely, 2009); when economic inequity induces feelings of

guilt or envy (Gino & Pierce, 2009; Moran & Schweitzer, 2008); when people feel anonymous,

such as when lights are low or when they wear sunglasses (Zhong, Bohns, & Gino, 2010); when

people feel inauthentic due to wearing counterfeit products (Gino, Norton, & Ariely, 2009); and

in the presence of large sums of cash (Gino & Pierce, 2009). Markedly fewer studies, however,

have investigated potential interventions to reduce cheating. A notable exception is research

showing that cheating becomes less prevalent when people are reminded of moral standards –

religious commandments or a school honor code (Mazar, Amir, & Ariely, 2008; Shu, Gino, &

Bazerman, 2011). Understanding the natural decay of self-deception and designing interventions

to decrease self-deception are crucial in assisting individuals in better monitoring their own self-

deceptive tendencies, and informing managers on how to design simple changes in their

organizations to reduce unethical behavior.

The Present Research

Three studies investigate explore the decay, reinstatement, and reduction of self-

deception. Study 1 observes the time course of the decay of self-deception when an initial act of

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Self-Deception 8

self-deception – believing onself intelligent due to cheating on an initial test – is followed by two

rounds of feedback on one’s actual abilities – taking subsequent tests without the answers.

Because the world offers more than one opportunity to cheat, Study 2 explores how the decay of

self-deception can be interrupted when people are given a second opportunity to cheat, and

therefore a second opportunity to self-deceive. Finally, Study 3 tests an intervention designed to

reduce self-deception by employing a physical barrier to self-deception; we draw cheaters’

attention to their cheating by forcing them to exert effort to cheat.

Study 1: Decay of Self-Deception Over Time

Study 1 had two primary goals. First, we tested the extent to which self-deception

would persist in the face of evidence of true ability. Given that experience is crucial for learning

(Argote & Miron-Spektor, 2011), we predicted that self-deception would fade after repeated

experience. Participants completed a battery of four tests of their general knowledge, predicting

their test performance before each test. Some participants – in the answers condition – had access

to an answer key for Test 1, and we expected them to both perform better on Test 1 and predict

better perfomace on Test 2 than those who did not have access to the answers. Importantly,

neither group had an answer key for Tests 2 through 4, therefore their scores on these tests

offered repeated evidence of their true ability. We assessed the extent to which the inflated

predictions of those given the answers on Test 1 would be tempered by their experience taking

subsequent tests without the answers.

Second, we tested whether individual differences in the tendency to self-deceive would

predict the rate of decay. Chance et al. (2011) showed that that individuals high in self-deceptive

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Self-Deception 9

enhancement were most likely to inflate their beliefs about their ability after cheating. We

predicted that self-deception would decay least rapidly for these individuals.

Method

Participants. Seventy participants (28 male, Mage = 23.9) from a university and

surrounding community in a northeastern city were paid $20 to complete the experiment as part

of a series of unrelated studies.

Design and procedure. Each participant was assigned to either the control or the answer

condition, and took four general knowledge quizzes with items such as, “What is the only

mammal that truly flies?” (Moore & Healy, 2008). Questions were pretested and configured into

10-item quizzes with trivia of varying topics and difficulty, selected to yield average scores of

approximately five points. For Test 1 of this study, participants in the answers condition had the

answers to all ten questions printed in an answer key at the bottom of the page. For all

particpants, Tests 2-4 did not have answers at the bottom. Participants were given three minutes

to complete each test, and were paid a bonus of $0.25 for each correct answer. After completing

each test, participants scored that test and predicted their score on the next – which they could

clearly see did not have answers at the bottom. Finally, participants completed Paulhus’s (1991)

Self-Deceptive Enhancement and Impression Management scales. In accordance with Paulhus

(1991), we calculated a Self-Deceptive Enhancement score for each participant by reverse-

coding the even-numbered questions and then scoring one point for each statement rated “six” or

“seven” (out of seven) on the first 26 items (e.g., “I never regret my decisions,” α=.69). The

remaining 16 items (e.g., “I have never pretended to be sick to avoid work or school”) were

aggregated in a similar fashion into an Impression Management score (α=.66).

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Self-Deception 10

Results and Discussion

As expected, participants who had access to the answers for Test 1 scored higher on that

test than did those in the control group (Manswers = 7.89, SD 2.37 vs. Mcontrol = 4.44, SD 1.86;

F(69) = 45.31, p <.001). More importantly, the answers group also showed evidence of self-

deception, expecting to score higher than the control group on Test 2 despite lacking an answer

key for that test (Manswers = 6.28, SD = 1.78 vs. Mcontrol = 5.44, SD = 1.28; F(69) = 5.03, p = .03).

Because the two randomly-assigned groups possessed similar ability, there was no difference in

actual scores on Tests 2 through 4 (all ps > .3). Given the equivalence of the two groups’

performances, we could therefore test how long it would take the inflated estimates of self-

deceivers to return to the level of the control group. Failing to fully incorporate the evidence of

their true ability (i.e., their Test 2 score), the answers group again predicted marginally higher

scores than the control group on Test 3 (Manswers = 5.72, SD = 1.67 vs. Mcontrol = 5.00, SD = 1.91;

F(69) = 2.86, p =.10), and finally, adjusted to make their predictions equivalent to the control

group on Test 4 (Manswers = 5.53, SD = 2.16 vs. Mcontrol = 4.97, SD = 1.69; F(69) = 1.43, p = .24).

Note, however, that even for predictions of Test 4, participants in the answers group still tended

to predict higher scores, suggesting the staying power of self-deception.

We next explored whether people’s general tendency to engage in self-deception would

relate to the rate at which self-deception decayed. Self-Deceptive Enhancement was correlated

with overpredictions on the second test in the answers condition (r = .40, p = .02), but not the

control condition (r = .07, p = .59). A median split on Self-Deceptive Enhancement revealed

that, as predicted, high self-enhancers were driving the irrationally optimistic predictions in the

answers group. High self-deceivers significantly overpredicted their scores on Test 2 compared

to those in the control condition (MhighSDE = 6.58, SD = 1.83 vs. Mcontrol = 5.44, SD = 1.28; t(51) =

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Self-Deception 11

2.65, p = .01). This difference in predictions persisted on Test 3 (MhighSDE = 5.95, SD = 1.65 vs.

Mcontrol = 5.00, SD = 1.91; t(51) = 1.82, p = .07). Eventually, even the high self-deceivers became

more realistic, predicting scores still directionally higher than the control group, but not

significantly so (MhighSDE = 5.74, SD = 2.30 vs. Mcontrol = 4.97, SD = 1.70; t(51) = 1.38, p = .17).

Low self-deceivers in the answers group, on the other hand, were indistinguishable from the

control group in their predictions on all three tests (all ts < .87, all ps .39 or greater).

Impression Management showed no significant relationship to overpredictions on any of

the tests (all rs < .27, all ps > .13), suggesting that the inflated predictions we observe are

primarily a private process rather than a strategy to impress others (such as the experimenter).

These results demonstrate that self-deception eventually fades after repeated exposure to

counterevidence in the form of less-than-stellar scores on tests without answers. The adjustment

was not immediate, however, and required multiple exposures – particularly for those with a

natural tendency to self-deceive. Waiting for the effects of self-deception to dissipate naturally,

then, holds only limited promise in attempting to decrease its prevalence.

Study 2: A Second Chance to Cheat

Study 1 demonstrated that self-deception can fade over time, and that this process

happens more slowly for some people than others. In everyday life, however, people are not

presented with only one opportunity to cheat – and only one opportunity to self-deceive. In Study

2 we explored whether the learning about true ability in the face of feedback that we observed in

Study 1 would persist even when people were given a second chance to cheat on Test 3, or

whether people would cheat – and then self-deceive – yet again. We predicted that those with the

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Self-Deception 12

answer keys would cheat on Tests 1 and 3, and that their inflated scores would buffer them from

the knowledge of their true ability, re-awakening self-deception.

Participants. One hundred forty-eight participants (68 male, Mage = 23.0) from a

university and surrounding community in a northeastern city were paid $20 to complete the

experiment as part of a series of unrelated studies.

Design and procedure. Participants were assigned to either the control or the answer

condition, and took four ten-item general knowledge quizzes as in Study 1. In the answers

condition, Tests 1 and 3 had the answers to all ten questions printed at the bottom of the page.

Tests 2 and 4 did not have answers. Participants looked over each test before predicting their

score, and were then given three minutes to complete the test. For each question answered

correctly, they were paid a bonus of $0.25.

Results and Discussion

Replicating the result of Study 1, participants with the answer key for Test 1 scored

higher on that test than did those in the control group (Manswers = 7.65, SD = 2.01 vs. Mcontrol =

5.03, SD = 1.92; F(147) = 13.92, p <.001). The answers group also showed evidence of self-

deception, expecting to score higher than the control group on Test 2 as well, again despite

lacking an answer key for that test (Manswers = 6.06, SD = 2.23 vs. Mcontrol = 4.97, SD = 1.88;

F(147) = 10.18, p <.001). Of course, because the two groups possessed similar ability, there was

no difference between conditions in scores on Test 2 (Manswers = 5.55, SD = 2.09 vs. Mcontrol =

5.34, SD = 1.70; F(147) = .44, p = .51). The answers group, seeing an answer key on Test 3,

predicted higher scores than the control group (Manswers = 6.95, SD = 2.29 vs. Mcontrol = 4.51, SD

= 1.89; F(147) = 48.76, p <.001), and again answered more questions correctly (Manswers = 7.46,

SD = 2.14 vs. Mcontrol = 4.68, SD = 1.61; F(147) = 77.31, p <.001). In their predictions for the

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Self-Deception 13

final test, did they carry forward their learning from having taken Test 2 without the answers, or

did the new opportunity to cheat wipe away that learning? Self-deception appeared to dominate:

those in the answers group again predicted better performance than the control group for Test 4

(Manswers = 5.75, SD = 2.10 vs. Mcontrol = 4.79, SD = 1.92; F(147) = 8.25, p =.005). Again,

however, both groups performed equally well on Test 4 (Manswers = 5.28, SD = 1.98 vs. Mcontrol =

4.88, SD = 1.96; F(147) = 1.46, p = .23).

A final comparison between the answer group’s predictions for Test 2 and Test 4 is

instructive. Their predictions for Test 2 were informed only by their performance on Test 1,

which was inflated by cheating. Their predictions for Test 4, on the other hand, should have been

determined by their performance not only on Tests 1 and 3 (where they had the answers) but also

by Test 2 (where they did not). Although their predictions were directionally lower for Test 4

than Test 2 (M Test2 = 6.06, SD = 2.23 vs. MTest4 = 5.75, SD = 2.10), the difference was only

marginal (t(79) = 1.16, p = .1). Thus the learning about their true ability on Test 2 appeared to be

disregarded or discounted as an input into their final predictions in favor of the self-deception in

which they engaged after Tests 1 and 3.

Study 3: Barriers to Self-Deception

Although feedback can eventually reduce self-deception (Study 1), Study 2 shows that

having an additional opportunity to cheat, with resulting superior performance, seems to erase

the memory of the previous legitimate feedback. Self-deception is therefore sticky: once it has

occurred, it is difficult to debias. As a result, reducing self-deception may require an intervention

closer to the initial act of cheating. In the case of our paradigm, this translates into making the

use of the answers on Test 1 more salient.

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Self-Deception 14

We conducted our third study by computer to allow for a condition in which the answers

to the first test could be temporarily revealed by using the mouse to move the cursor to the

bottom of the screen. This slight modification still permitted cheating, but drew increased

attention to the act – making the act of cheating more salient, we predicted, would make cheating

harder to attribute to one’s innate genius. Our logic follows from related research by Mazar,

Amir, and Ariely (2008) which shows that people are comfortable cheating to the extent to which

it doesn’t feel too much like actively cheating. We expected that participants in the “reveal

answers” condition would report lower scores than those in the standard answers condition on

the first test, and also make more conservative predictions on the second—despite having access

to all the answers.

Method

Participants. Three hundred forty-eight participants (age and gender information not

collected) were university and community members in a northeastern city who were paid $20 to

complete the experiment as part of a series of unrelated studies.

Design and procedure. Participants were assigned to one of three conditions to take a

computerized IQ test with eight questions (e.g. “If a man weighs 75% of his own weight plus 42

pounds, how much does he weigh?”). In the control condition, participants saw the questions

only, with no answers. In the answers condition, the answers to all eight questions were visible at

the bottom of the screen. In the reveal answers condition, participants saw the same screen as the

control group, and were told that moving the mouse down to the bottom of the screen would

reveal the answers and moving it back up would hide them again. This methodology allowed us

to count the number of times participants peeked at the answers.

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Self-Deception 15

Participants were given four minutes to complete the test, then asked to score themselves

and report their scores. Next, they were asked to predict how well they would do on a similar

eight-item computerized test without answers. Finally, they completed the second test. During

this task, they had 30 seconds to respond to each question before the program advanced them to

the next.

Results and Discussion

First, we confirmed that participants in the reveal answers condition did take the

opportunity to peek at the answers: 84 percent peeked at least once, and the mean number of

peeks was 5.83, SD = 4.35. This number was significantly, though weakly, related to number of

correct answers (r(128) = .18, p = .04).

As predicted, scores on the first test differed by condition (F(2, 347) = 3.09, p < .05). The

self-reported scores of those in the answers and control conditions followed the expected pattern,

with the answers group scoring higher than control (Manswers= 4.48, SD = 1.85 vs. Mcontrol = 3.95,

SD = 1.72; t(110)= 2.17, p = .03). The reveal answers group reported significantly lower scores

than the standard answers group (Mreveal = 3.98, SD = 1.83; t(236) = 2.11, p = .04). Thus, when

attention was drawn to peeking, participants were more aware of which problems they could

solve without assistance and did not claim undue credit.

Predictions for the second test also differed by condition (F (2, 344) = 3.23, p < .04),

with participants in the reveal answers condition carrying their modest predictions forward to

Test 2 (Mreveal = 3.93, SD = 1.67), such that their predictions were lower than those of

participants in the answers condition (Manswers = 4.42, SD = 1.70; t(235) = 2.23, p = .03): despite

equal access to the answers on Test 1, participants in the “reveal answers” condition did not

show evidence of self-deception in their predictions for Test 2. These low expectations in the

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Self-Deception 16

reveal answers condition are particularly striking in light of the fact that participants in the

control condition actually predicted improvement on Test 2 (Mcontrol = 4.41, SD = 1.71). (The

amount of time allotted for the first test was relatively short in this experiment, such that the

control group may have expected practice to improve their performance.) Actual performance on

the second test did not differ by condition, (Mcontrol = .86, SD = 1.02; Manswers = .96, SD = 1.17;

Mreveal = .91, SD = 1.07; F(2, 345) = .23, p = .79).

These findings suggest that increasing awareness of the link between having answers to a

test present and one’s performance on that test can reduce both cheating and the self-deception

that arises from it.

General Discussion

People misbehave: They lie, they cheat, they steal, they betray. Yet most people view

themselves as good and moral individuals (Aquino & Reed, 2002) and seem to be resistant to

shining a critical moral light on their behavior. How do people resolve this apparent

inconsistency between their bad behavior and positive self-image? Their innate psychological

tendency to engage in self-deception (Tenbrunsel & Messick, 2004). Recognizing one’s own

self-deception is difficult (Bok, 1978; 1989), and correcting the ingrained mechanisms that

engender it is a difficult task (Tenbrunsel & Messick, 2004). The first step is to recognize its

pervasive presence and acknowledge that no one is immune to it. Tenbrunsel and Messick (2004,

p. 234) suggest that “by confronting the tendency toward self-deception head on, we will be

more likely to reduce its prevalence than if we ignore it and act as if it did not exist.” Yet

individuals themselves are ill-equipped to confront their own self-deception after the fact, since

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Self-Deception 17

they are unaware of it; as observed in previous research, incentives often fail to reduce self-

deception (Chance et al., 2011).

The current research explores two means by which people’s self-deception may be

decreased, one addressing the issue after the initial self-deception has occurred, and the other

attempting to prevent self-deception from happening in the first place. Our studies demonstrate

that time and repetitions of unbiased feedback can reduce self-deception and eventually eliminate

it (Study 1); however, the tendency re-emerges when the opportunity for cheating presents itself

again (Study 2). Interventions early on in the process, providing barriers to self-deception, may

prevent self-deception and decrease cheating as well (Study 3).

In our studies, we tested for self-deception using a specific set of tasks, similar to school

or university test situations in which students might have the opportunity to cheat. While we

examined the impact of self-deception on people’s beliefs about their future performance, self-

deception in contexts like these may also impact people’s subsequent behavior. For instance, it

may lead them to spend less time preparing for future tests, thus reducing their learning in

addition to hampering the possibility of good future performance. Future research could examine

this type of behavioral consequence, both in the context of academic cheating as well as in other

contexts where people have the opportunity to inflate their performance by cheating and then

deceive themselves. Importantly, the tools for debiasing or reducing self-deception may be

different in contexts outside of academic cheating. Further research would enhance our

understanding of how to prevent both cheating and self-deception in organizations and society

more broadly.

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Self-Deception 18

Theoretical Contributions

Although the construct of self-deception has a long history in psychology, decision

making research and organizational behavior, the nature of the process by which self-deception

takes place is still subject to debate (Gur & Sackeim, 1979; Mele, 1997; Sackeim & Gur, 1978;

1979; Trivers, 2000). Our research contributes to this literature by showing that when people are

made more aware of the fact that they are cheating, they are subsequently less likely to self-

deceive (Study 3). In addition, we show that while self-deception does occur rapidly – it takes

just one episode of cheating to change people’s beliefs about their ability – there is some decay

over time, suggesting that self-deception may provide temporary “boosts” to the self-concept, but

that these boosts may be relatively short-lived given some feedback from the environment (Study

1). At the same time, we show that sensitivity to feedback is highly contingent on the extent to

which it enables self-deception; feedback that suggests one is a genius is given more weight than

feedback suggesting one’s true abilities (Study 2). As a result, it appears as though people are

“primed” to self-deceive, awaiting opportunities to inflate their self-views, and only grudgingly

and occasionally adjusting them downward.

In addition, our research contributes to the behavioral ethics literature by highlighting the

importance of understanding psychological drivers to unethical behavior, their powerful and

robust effects, and the difficulty of eliminating them. Perhaps most importantly, the existing

research on the individual psychology of ethical decision making takes mostly a “one-shot”

approach by examining the effect of one or more specific variables on one subsequent unethical

act, or a global approach by assessing very general beliefs about the self such as people’s broad

tendency to view themselves in a positive light (e.g., Alicke, 1985; Chambers & Windschitl,

2004; Moore & Kim, 2003; Taylor & Brown, 1988). Along these lines, Chance et al. (2011)

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Self-Deception 19

documented how a single act of cheating can lead to self-deception in the short term. The current

investigation explores ethics over a longer time course, examining how an initial unethical

behavior changes people’s beliefs in the longer term – and how those beliefs are impacted by

both receiving more information about one’s character over time (Study 1) and being provided

with subsequent opportunities to engage in further unethical behavior (Study 2).

Organizational Implications

Learning how to prevent or diminish self-deception is crucial because cheating is both

commonplace and costly (Callahan, 2004; Hollinger & Langton, 2007). Evidence shows that the

majority of high school students admit having cheated during the past year (Josephson Institute,

2010), and the majority of resumes contain misleading information (HireRight, 2012). According

to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, nearly 75 percent of workers steal from their employer,

causing fully 30 percent of all corporate bankruptcies – and most of the perpetrators of employee

theft are managers (Burke & Cooper, 2010). If even some of this dishonesty is facilitated by self-

deception, then understanding self-deception may improve social welfare.

How might organizations erect barriers to self-deception? In the documentary Enron: The

Smartest Guys in the Room, a former Enron trader confessed that it was ambiguity that allowed

him to participate in the firm’s questionable activities, without admitting to himself what he was

doing was wrong: “If I had questions, I didn't ask them, because I didn't want to know the

answer. You know, I didn't want confirmed what I suspected might be true, that what I was

doing was, in fact, unseemly or was at least unethical, if not worse.” In Shu et al. (2012), signing

an honesty pledge before having the opportunity to cheat reduced cheating by making ethics

salient during the decision process. Like our “mouse peeks” intervention, this psychological

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Self-Deception 20

barrier decreased the likelihood that individuals could cheat mindlessly – and mindless cheating

offers an optimal condition for self-deception, since it implies that part of the self is unaware of

one’s actions.

Indeed, Mazar et al. (2008) demonstrated that people are most comfortable cheating when

they are unaware of the fact that they are cheating, when there is sufficient ambiguity in their

behavior. In organizational settings, this kind of ambiguity is often present: does stealing pens

from work make me a bad person, or does it in fact show that I am the very best employee at the

firm because I’ll use them to work at home this evening? At the same time, there are clearly

contexts in which rules for good conduct are clear; in such settings, cheating may not lead to

self-deception. Future research could explore how self-deception following cheating varies

depending on the level of ambiguity in the situation, thus deepening our understanding of the

conditions under which self-deception is most likely to occur.

Conclusion

It is perhaps not surprising that economic incentives can encourage cheating and self-

deception in laboratory studies (e.g. Gino & Pierce, 2009) and also in real world situations like

the Enron environment – people like money and will behave unethically to obtain more of it.

However, as noted earlier, those same economic incentives have proven to be much less effective

at undoing self-deception; once deception has taken place, money fails to reduce self-deception

(Chance et al., 2011). In such cases, and as we have shown here, when economic incentives miss

the mark, psychological interventions may prove more fruitful.

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Self-Deception 21

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