Being honest when tempted to cheat elicits activation in reward-related brain regions and protects mood

Being honest when tempted to cheat elicits activation in reward-related brain regions and protects mood | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Being honest when tempted to cheat elicits activation in reward-related brain regions and protects mood Isabelle Caruso, Christopher Mlynski, Georgia Clay, Thomas Goschke, and 2 more This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-3893342/v3 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 3 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Show more versions Abstract Scientific discourse often posits that being honest in tempting situations, where cheating would go unnoticed, is inherently costly. Because honesty often requires sacrificing extrinsic rewards and enduring the aversive costs of recruiting self-control, it appears unlikely that honesty holds an inherent value for the individual. In this research, we challenge this assumption by demonstrating that honesty can be intrinsically rewarding, offsetting the inherent costs of control (Study 1) and mitigating the negative emotional impact of foregoing extrinsic rewards (Study 2). We compared conditions in which no external reward was obtained, but critically, in one condition participants could have cheated to receive a reward. Choosing honesty (thus forgoing the reward), compared to receiving no reward when cheating was impossible, was associated with increased activity in reward-related brain regions, consistent with honesty having an intrinsic value (Study 1, n = 65). To address possible concerns regarding reverse inference in the fMRI data, we obtained converging behavioral evidence in a follow-up online study ( n = 2,005), which showed that being honest attenuated negative effects of not receiving rewards on participants’ mood. These findings suggest that beyond the moral imperative, honesty carries an immediate intrinsic benefit that can promote honest behavior. Social science/Psychology/Human behaviour Biological sciences/Neuroscience/Cognitive neuroscience/Decision Biological sciences/Neuroscience/Reward honesty temptation self-control fMRI intrinsic value reward Full Text Additional Declarations The authors declare no competing interests. Supplementary Files ManuscriptV3SupplementPreprint.docx Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 3 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Show more versions Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-3893342","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":319650634,"identity":"239aaff9-1f5b-478c-8a78-f11b7fa4cafa","order_by":0,"name":"Isabelle 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