Aside from the evidence of environmental effects of money on
self-interest, there remains little understanding of how monetary-
based stimuli might drive an important class of unethical
behaviors: over-reporting for personal gain. The prevalence of such
behavior, combined with the ubiquity of money and other assets in
organizations, raises the question of whether wealthy environments
are important drivers of such unethicality. In this paper,
we directly test whether environmental wealth increases unethical
behavior in the form of over-reporting of performance. We test this
proposed link in three laboratory studies using large quantities of
cash currency as a visual cue of environmental wealth.