Over the past decades, psychologists and policymakers have been trying to devise interventions that could dissuade individuals from engaging in dishonest social behaviors, such as tax evasion or fraud. One promising strategy they identified entails asking people to commit to being honest before they are given the opportunity to engage in dishonest behavior.
While many studies found evidence suggesting that honesty oaths can reduce dishonest behavior, very few explored how different interventions utilizing these oaths compare. Researchers at Aarhus University and other institutes worldwide recently carried out a study investigating the effectiveness of various ex-ante honesty oath interventions.
Their findings, published in Nature Human Behavior, suggest that while different honesty oath-based interventions can successfully curb dishonesty, their effectiveness varies greatly depending on their content. The researchers also identified an intervention that appears to be particularly promising for reducing dishonest behavior.
