We tested these hypotheses in three laboratory studies in
which participants were given the opportunity to act unethically
by overstating their performance. In the studies, we asked participants
to grade their own performance on an anagram task.
A participant’s decision to overstate her own performance resulted
in a greater payment, thereby creating an incentive to
cheat. We manipulated wealth by varying the amount of cash
present in the room where the study took place while holding
the opportunity for unethical gain constant. These studies allowed
us to manipulate wealth in the environment while controlling
the opportunity for unethical behavior. While the
paper focuses on overstatement of performance as a specific type
of unethical behavior, we believe our findings are generalizable
to other unethical behaviors involving personal gain (such as
theft or fraud) since other forms of dishonesty involve similar
tradeoffs between personal gain (e.g., monetary earnings) and
potential costs (damage to moral self-image or low probability
of being caught).