Committed Dishonesty: A Systematic Meta-Analysis of the Effect of Social Commitment on Dishonest Behavior

Author:

Zickfeld Janis,Karg Simon TobiasORCID,Engen Sebastian ScottORCID,Gonzalez Ana Sofía Ramirez,Michael JohnORCID,Mitkidis Panagiotis

Abstract

People feel committed to other individuals, groups, or organizations in many contexts in everyday life. Such social commitment can have many positive outcomes, related to job satisfaction or relationship longevity, but might there also be detrimental effects to feeling committed? Recent high-profile cases of fraud or corruption in companies such as Enron or Volkswagen are likely based to some degree on strong commitment to the organization or co-workers. While social commitment might increase dishonest behavior, there is little systematic cumulative knowledge about when and how this may occur. In the present project, we reviewed 20,988 articles, while focusing on studies experimentally manipulating social commitment and measuring dishonest behavior. We retained 344 effect sizes from 110 articles featuring a total of 63,550 participants across 25 countries. We found no evidence that social commitment increases or reduces dishonest behavior in general, but we did find evidence that the effect depended strongly on the target of the commitment. Feeling commitment to other individuals or groups reduced honest behavior (g = -.17 [-.25, -.10]), while feeling commitment to social norms via honesty oaths or pledges increased honest behavior (g = .24 [.16, .32]). The analysis identified several moderating variables and found evidence for some degree of publication bias across effects. Our findings highlight the diverging effects of different forms of social commitment on dishonest behavior, and suggest a combination of the different forms of commitment as a possible means to combat corruption and dishonest behavior in the organizational context.

Publisher

Center for Open Science

Cited by 1 articles. 订阅此论文施引文献 订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献

同舟云学术

1.学者识别学者识别

2.学术分析学术分析

3.人才评估人才评估

"同舟云学术"是以全球学者为主线,采集、加工和组织学术论文而形成的新型学术文献查询和分析系统,可以对全球学者进行文献检索和人才价值评估。用户可以通过关注某些学科领域的顶尖人物而持续追踪该领域的学科进展和研究前沿。经过近期的数据扩容,当前同舟云学术共收录了国内外主流学术期刊6万余种,收集的期刊论文及会议论文总量共计约1.5亿篇,并以每天添加12000余篇中外论文的速度递增。我们也可以为用户提供个性化、定制化的学者数据。欢迎来电咨询!咨询电话:010-8811{复制后删除}0370

www.globalauthorid.com

TOP

Copyright © 2019-2024 北京同舟云网络信息技术有限公司
京公网安备11010802033243号  京ICP备18003416号-3