Bad Boys: How Criminal Identity Salience Affects Rule Violation

Arbeitspapier

We conducted an experiment with 182 inmates from a maximum security prison to analyze the impact of criminal identity salience on cheating. The results show that inmates cheat more when we exogenously render their criminal identity more salient. This effect is specific to individuals who have a criminal identity, because an additional placebo experiment shows that regular citizens do not become more dishonest in response to crime-related reminders. Moreover, our experimental measure of cheating correlates with inmates’ offenses against in-prison regulation. Together, these findings suggest that criminal identity salience plays a crucial role in rule violating behavior.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: CESifo Working Paper ; No. 5363

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Law and Economics: General ; Field Experiments ; Criminal Law ; Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law ; Cultural Economics; Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology: General
• Subject: dishonesty ; identity ; crime ; prison ; experiment

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Cohn, Alain ; Maréchal, Michel André ; Noll, Thomas
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo)
• (where): Munich
• (when): 2015

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/110860
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:45 AM CET