Unpacking the justifiability of dishonesty: Behavioral and process-tracing investigation

When an opportunity to cheat is present, having a justification increases the chance that people will take it. We report a study where people made choices whether to cheat for their own or the charity’s benefit, without a cost to the other party or at its expense. Social and situational justifications were manipulated by varying the beneficiary of cheating and ambiguity of cheating to make it easier for people to cheat. We found that people cheated less in the trials where cheating for one beneficiary was at the expense of the other party. Using mouse-tracking data, we examined whether cheating was relatively deliberate or automatic. People hesitated more on trials where they were tempted to cheat, but there was no change in the initial direction of mouse movement on such trials. Our results suggest that cheating is not an automatic process, that justifications have a similar impact on cheating for oneself and others, and that people might be wary of cheating for one party at the expense of another.