Licence to lie and the social (In)appropriateness of lying

Abstract

Environments that encourage dishonest behaviour can compromise intrinsic honesty by altering beliefs about what is considered socially appropriate behaviour. I extend the incentivised Krupka and Weber (2013) elicitation method to the domain of lying and present two complementary studies that show how different social environments not only instigate different levels of dishonest behaviour but also change what a representative sample of Norwegian citizens perceives as socially appropriate when it comes to lying.