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A R T I C L E S
The brain adapts to dishonesty
Neil Garrett1, Stephanie C Lazzaro1, Dan Ariely2 & Tali Sharot1
Dishonesty is an integral part of our social world, influencing domains ranging from finance and politics to personal relationships. Anecdotally, digressions from a moral code are often described as a series of small breaches that grow over time. Here we provide empirical evidence for a gradual escalation of self-serving dishonesty and reveal a neural mechanism supporting it. Behaviorally, we show that the extent to which participants engage in self-serving dishonesty increases with repetition. Using functionalMRI, we show that signal reduction in the amygdala is sensitive to the history of dishonest behavior, consistent with adaptation. Critically, the extent of reduced amygdala sensitivity to dishonesty on a present decision relative to the previous one predictsthe magnitude of escalation of self-serving dishonesty on the next decision. The findings uncover a biological mechanism that supports a slippery slope: what begins as small acts of dishonesty can escalate into larger transgressions.
2016 Nature America, Inc., part of Springer Nature. All rights reserved.
Many dishonest acts are speculatively traced back to a sequence of smaller transgressions that gradually escalated. From financial fraud to plagiarism, online scams and scientific misconduct, deceivers retrospectively describe how minor dishonest decisions snowballed into significant ones over time14. Despite the dramatic impact of these acts on economics5,6, policy7 and education8, we do not have a clear understanding of how and why small transgressions may gradually lead to larger ones. Here, we set out to empirically demonstrate dishonesty escalation in a controlled laboratory setting and examine the underlying mechanism.
People often perceive self-serving dishonesty as morally wrong9
and report uneasiness when engaging in such behavior10. Consistent with these reports, physiological11 and neurological12 measures of emotional arousal are observed when people deceive. Blocking such signals pharmacologically results in significant increases in dishonesty. For example, in one study students who had taken and responded to a mild sympatholytic agent were twice as likely to cheat on an exam as those who took a placebo13. Thus, in the absence of an affective signal that can help curb dishonesty, people may engage in more frequent and severe acts.
A large body of research demonstrates that the response to an...