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Article | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

Temporal View of the Costs and Benefits of Self-Deception

by Zoe Chance, Michael I. Norton, Francesca Gino and Dan Ariely

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Abstract

Researchers have documented many cases in which individuals rationalize their regrettable actions. Four experiments examine situations in which people go beyond merely explaining away their misconduct to actively deceiving themselves. We find that those who exploit opportunities to cheat on tests are likely to engage in self-deception, inferring that their elevated performance is a sign of intelligence. This short-term psychological benefit of self-deception, however, can come with longer-term costs: when predicting future performance, participants expect to perform equally well—a lack of awareness that persists even when these inflated expectations prove costly. We show that although people expect to cheat, they do not foresee self-deception, and that factors that reinforce the benefits of cheating enhance self-deception. More broadly, the findings of these experiments offer evidence that debates about the relative costs and benefits of self-deception are informed by adopting a temporal view that assesses the cumulative impact of self-deception over time.

Keywords: Cases; Opportunities; Performance Improvement; Social Psychology; Fairness; Cost vs Benefits; Cost; Forecasting and Prediction; Performance Expectations;

Format: Print 5 pages Find at Harvard Read Now

Citation:

Chance, Zoe, Michael I. Norton, Francesca Gino, and Dan Ariely. "Temporal View of the Costs and Benefits of Self-Deception." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 108, no. S3 (September 13, 2011): 15655–15659.

About the Authors

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Michael I. Norton
Harold M. Brierley Professor of Business Administration
Director of Research
Marketing

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Francesca Gino
Tandon Family Professor of Business Administration
Co-Unit Head, Negotiation, Organizations & Markets
Negotiation, Organizations & Markets

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More from these Authors

  • Article | Psychological Science | March 2018

    Polluted Morality: Air Pollution Predicts Criminal Activity and Unethical Behavior

    Jackson G. Lu, Julia J. Lee, F. Gino and Adam D. Galinsky

    Air pollution is a serious problem that influences billions of people globally. Although the health and environmental costs of air pollution are well known, the present research investigates its ethical costs. We propose that air pollution can increase criminal and unethical behavior by increasing anxiety. Analysis of a 9-year panel of 9,360 U.S. cities found that air pollution predicted six different categories of crime; these analyses accounted for a comprehensive set of control variables (e.g., city and year fixed effects, population, law enforcement) and survived various robustness checks (e.g., non-parametric bootstrapped standard errors, balanced panel). Three subsequent experiments involving American and Indian participants established the causal effect of psychologically experiencing a polluted vs. clean environment on unethical behavior. Consistent with our theoretical perspective, anxiety mediated this effect. Air pollution not only corrupts people’s physical health, but can also contaminate their morality.

    Keywords: Pollution and Pollutants; Behavior; Moral Sensibility; Crime and Corruption;

    Citation:

    Lu, Jackson G., Julia J. Lee, F. Gino, and Adam D. Galinsky. "Polluted Morality: Air Pollution Predicts Criminal Activity and Unethical Behavior." Psychological Science 29, no. 3 (March 2018): 340–355.  View Details
    CiteView DetailsFind at Harvard Related
  • Working Paper | 2018

    Amount and Diversity of Digital Emotional Expression Predicts Happiness

    Laura Vuillier, Alison Wood Brooks, June Gruber, Rui Sun, Michael I. Norton, Matthew James Samson, Emiliana Simon-Thomas, Paul Piff, Sarah Fan, Jordi Quoidbach, Charles Gorintin, Pete Fleming, Arturo Bejar and Dacher Keltner

    Emotional expression in digital form has become increasingly ubiquitous via the proliferation of computers and handheld devices. Using online surveys and live chat experiments across four studies and 1,325 individuals (Study 1A-B and 2A-B), and a large social media dataset spanning 4.9 billion individuals (Study 3), we examine whether digital emotion expression (emojis) predicts happiness at the individual and national levels. Our studies converge on three central findings. First, people use emojis in text-based communication to convey emotional experience. Second, the amount and diversity of emojis causally increases happiness during social interactions. Third, across 122 countries, higher total amount and greater diversity of emoji usage per capita and per user correlate with higher national happiness. Across levels of analysis, our results suggest that both the amount and diversity of digital emotion expression influences well-being.

    Keywords: Emotions; Communication Technology; Happiness; Forecasting and Prediction;

    Citation:

    Vuillier, Laura, Alison Wood Brooks, June Gruber, Rui Sun, Michael I. Norton, Matthew James Samson, Emiliana Simon-Thomas, Paul Piff, Sarah Fan, Jordi Quoidbach, Charles Gorintin, Pete Fleming, Arturo Bejar, and Dacher Keltner. "Amount and Diversity of Digital Emotional Expression Predicts Happiness." Working Paper, February 2018.  View Details
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  • Teaching Note | HBS Case Collection | February 2018

    Advika Consulting Services: Challenges and Opportunities in Managing Human Capital

    Alison Wood Brooks, Francesca Gino, Julia J. Lee, Bradley R. Staats, Andrew Wasynczuk and John Beshears

    Teaching Note for HBS No. 916-033.

    Keywords: consulting firms;

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    Brooks, Alison Wood, Francesca Gino, Julia J. Lee, Bradley R. Staats, Andrew Wasynczuk, and John Beshears. "Advika Consulting Services: Challenges and Opportunities in Managing Human Capital." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 918-038, February 2018.  View Details
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