How Much for Your Honesty?Honesty as a Protected Value and its Implications forChoices in Business

Although examples of deception and fraud in business have generated widespread interest in themotivations for honest behavior, little is known about individual differences in the propensity totell the truth. This paper highlights the role of honesty as a protected value, maintaining thatsome individuals feel strongly committed to honesty and motivated to defend this position, evenwhen it is costly. In two experiments we tested honesty’s power to shape the impact of monetaryincentives. Experiment 1 investigated managerial choices and demonstrated that variation inhonesty helped to explain heterogeneity in resistance to (real) financial incentives and absolutetrade-off resistance.[...]