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

  Signing at the Beginning vs at the End Does Not Decrease Dishonesty

  Ariella Kristal, A.V. Whillans, Max Bazerman, Francesca Gino, Lisa Shu, Nina Mazar and Dan Ariely

  Honest reporting is essential for society to function well. However, people frequently lie when asked to provide information, such as misrepresenting their income to save money on taxes. A landmark finding published in PNAS (Shu, Mazar, Gino, Ariely, and Bazerman, 2012, “Signing at the Beginning Makes Ethics Salient and Decreases Dishonest Self-reports in Comparison to Signing at the End”) provided evidence for a simple way of encouraging honest reporting: asking people to sign a veracity statement at the beginning instead of at the end of a self-report form. Since this finding was published, various government agencies have adopted this practice. However, in this project, we failed to replicate this result. Across five conceptual replications (N = 4,559) and one highly powered, pre-registered, direct replication (N = 1,235) conducted with the authors of the original paper, we observed no effect of signing first on honest reporting. Given the policy applications of this result, it is important to update the scientific record regarding the veracity of these results.

  Keywords: Morality; nudge; policy-making; replication; honesty; Moral Sensibility; Behavior; Policy;

  Citation:

  Kristal, Ariella, A.V. Whillans, Max Bazerman, Francesca Gino, Lisa Shu, Nina Mazar, and Dan Ariely. "Signing at the Beginning vs at the End Does Not Decrease Dishonesty." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 117, no. 13 (March 31, 2020).  View Details

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• Editorial | Scientific American | March 21, 2020

  When We're Wrong, It's Our Responsibility as Scientists to Say So

  Ariella Kristal, A.V. Whillans, Max Bazerman, Francesca Gino, Lisa Shu, Nina Mazar and Dan Ariely

  We tried to reproduce our 2012 paper on how to make people report their income more honestly—and we ended up refuting it.

  Keywords: responsibility;

  Citation:

  Kristal, Ariella, A.V. Whillans, Max Bazerman, Francesca Gino, Lisa Shu, Nina Mazar, and Dan Ariely. "When We're Wrong, It's Our Responsibility as Scientists to Say So." Scientific American (March 21, 2020).  View Details

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• Case | HBS Case Collection | March 2020

  Social Salary Setting at Spiber

  Ashley Whillans and John Beshears

  Can a “set your own salary” system boost employee happiness and motivation? Spiber made synthetic silk built from proteins mimicking the proteins found in spider silk, the world’s toughest known material by weight. Kazuhide Sekiyama and Junichi Sugahara established Spiber to create protein materials that would eventually compete effectively with petrochemical-based materials widely used in apparel, auto parts, and airplane components, among many other applications. From the beginning, they envisioned a team built on mutual respect and a common purpose. The executive team wanted the company’s compensation system to match the organization’s values. Thus, the company had implemented a unique salary-setting process designed to inspire autonomy and responsibility among employees: each employee retained the ultimate authority to choose his or her own salary. The members of the executive team were excited about the “set your own salary” system, but was it having the intended effect?

  Keywords: Compensation and Benefits; Motivation and Incentives; Happiness; Negotiation Tactics; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Biotechnology Industry; Japan; United States;

  Citation:

  Whillans, Ashley, and John Beshears. "Social Salary Setting at Spiber." Harvard Business School Case 920-050, March 2020.  View Details

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