Clever Enough to Tell the Truth

Arbeitspapier

We conduct a field experiment on 427 Israeli soldiers who each rolled a six-sided die in private and reported the outcome. For every point reported, the soldier received an additional half-hour early release from the army base on Thursday afternoon. We find that the higher a soldier's military entrance score, the more honest he is on average. We replicate this finding on a sample of 156 civilians paid in cash for their die reports. Furthermore, the civilian experiments reveal that two measures of cognitive ability predict honesty, whereas general self-report honesty questions and a consistency check among them are of no value. We provide a rationale for the relationship between cognitive ability and honesty and discuss its generalizability.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 9860

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Field Experiments ; Personnel Economics: Firm Employment Decisions; Promotions
• Subject: soldiers ; cognitive ability ; honesty ; high non-monetary stakes

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Ruffle, Bradley ; Tobol, Yossi
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
• (where): Bonn
• (when): 2016

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/141619
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:44 AM CET