Strong discrepancy between stated and revealed behavior: given a natural setting, people may actually behave inconsistently with the way in which they otherwise “brand” themselves; this is a big problem for predictability of survey answers

Why (field) experiments on unethical behavior are important: Comparing stated and revealed behavior. Yonas Alema et al. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2018.08.026

Highlights
•    Field experiment on unethical behavior.
•    Comparison of stated behavior and revealed behavior.
•    Experiment induces reciprocity and guilt in two treatments.
•    Result 1: strong discrepancy between stated and revealed behavior.
•    Result 2: inducing reciprocity and guilt reduces unethical behavior compared to control.

Abstract: Understanding unethical behavior is essential to many phenomena in the real world. We carry out a field experiment in a unique setting that varies the levels of reciprocity and guilt in an ethical decision. A survey more than one year before the field experiment allows us to compare at the individual level stated unethical behavior with revealed behavior in the same situation in the field. Our results indicate a strong discrepancy between stated and revealed behavior, regardless of the specific treatment in the field experiment. This suggests that, given a natural setting, people may actually behave inconsistently with the way in which they otherwise “brand” themselves. Our findings raise caution about the interpretation of stated behavioral measures commonly used in research on unethical behavior. In addition, we show that inducing reciprocity and guilt leads to a decrease in unethical behavior.