Effectiveness of ex ante honesty oaths in reducing dishonesty depends on content.

Dishonest behaviours such as tax evasion impose significant societal costs. Ex ante honesty oaths-commitments to honesty before action-have been proposed as interventions to counteract dishonest behaviour, but the heterogeneity in findings across operationalizations calls their effectiveness into question. We tested 21 honesty oaths (including a baseline oath)-proposed, evaluated and selected by 44 expert researchers-and a no-oath condition in a megastudy involving 21,506 UK and US participants from Prolific.

How laws affect the perception of norms: Empirical evidence from the lockdown.

Laws not only affect behavior due to changes in material payoffs, but they may also change the perception individuals have of social norms, either by shifting them directly or by providing information on these norms. Using detailed daily survey data and exploiting the introduction of lockdown measures in the UK in the context of the COVID-19 health crisis, we provide causal evidence that the law drastically changed the perception of the norms regarding social distancing behaviors. We show that this effect of laws on perceived norms is mostly driven by an informational channel and that the intervention made perceptions of social norms converge to the actual prevalent norm.

Correction: Do truth-telling oaths improve honesty in crowd-working?

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.

Can We Commit Future Managers to Honesty?

In a competitive business environment, dishonesty can pay. Self-interested executives and managers can have incentive to shade the truth for personal gain. In response, the business community has considered how to commit these executives and managers to a higher ethical standard.

Do truth-telling oaths improve honesty in crowd-working?

This study explores whether an oath to honesty can reduce both shirking and lying among crowd-sourced internet workers. Using a classic coin-flip experiment, we first confirm that a substantial majority of Mechanical Turk workers both shirk and lie when reporting the number of heads flipped. We then demonstrate that lying can be reduced by first asking each worker to swear voluntarily on his or her honor to tell the truth in subsequent economic decisions.

Dynamic effects of enforcement on cooperation.

In situations where social payoffs are not aligned with private incentives, enforcement with fines can be a way to sustain cooperation. In this paper we show, by the means of a laboratory experiment, that past fines can have an effect on current behavior even when no longer in force. We document two mechanisms: () Past fines affect directly individuals' future propensity to cooperate, and () when fines for noncooperation are in place in the past, individuals experience higher levels of cooperation from partners and, consistent with indirect reciprocity motives, are in turn nicer toward others once these fines have been removed.

The out-of-my-league effect.

When taking into account the chances of success, strategic mating motivations do imply a bias not toward the most attractive individuals, but toward average or mildly attractive individuals, undermining the explanation of Maestripieri et al. at a fundamental level. This leaves open the possibility of alternative explanations and calls for a full-fledged explicit model of courtship behavior.

Fluid Intelligence and Cognitive Reflection in a Strategic Environment: Evidence from Dominance-Solvable Games.

Dominance solvability is one of the most straightforward solution concepts in game theory. It is based on two principles: dominance (according to which players always use their dominant strategy) and iterated dominance (according to which players always act as if others apply the principle of dominance). However, existing experimental evidence questions the empirical accuracy of dominance solvability.

Physicians' multitasking and incentives: empirical evidence from a natural experiment.

We analyse how physicians respond to contractual changes and incentives within a multitasking environment. In 1999 the Quebec government (Canada) introduced an optional mixed compensation (MC) system, combining a fixed per diem with a partial (relative to the traditional fee-for-service (FFS) system) fee for services provided. We combine panel survey and administrative data on Quebec physicians to evaluate the impact of this change in incentives on their practice choices.

Mineralogical changes of a well cement in various H2S-CO2(-brine) fluids at high pressure and temperature.

The reactivity of a crushed well cement in contact with (1) a brine with dissolved H2S-CO2; (2) a dry H2S-CO2 supercritical phase; (3) a two-phase fluid associating a brine with dissolved H2S-CO2 and a H2S-CO2 supercritical phase was investigated in batch experiments at 500 bar and 120, 200 degrees C. All of the experiments showed that following 15-60 days cement carbonation occurred. The H2S reactivity with cement is limited since it only transformed the ferrites (minor phases) by sulfidation.