The Science of Dishonesty

A 2016 article examined brain responses to dishonesty. This area of science is important. Dishonesty significantly affects major areas of life including politics. The researchers commented that anecdotal evidence indicates that digressions from a moral code tend to be seen as “a series of small breaches that grow over time.” Their paper, The Brain Adapts to Dishonesty, describes empirical evidence for increasing self-serving dishonesty over time. Their data uncovered a plausible neural mechanism showing the brain’s adaptation to dishonesty.

The scientists wrote: “Behaviorally, we show that the extent to which participants engage in self-serving dishonesty increases with repetition. Using fMRI [brain scans] we show that signal reduction in the amygdala is sensitive to the history of dishonest behavior, consistent with adaptation. Critically, the extent of amygdala BOLD [biological activity seen in brain scans] reduction to dishonesty on a present decision relative to the last, predicts the 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 instances.

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 time(1–4). Despite the dramatic impact of these acts on economics(5,6), policy(7) and education(8), 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 wrong(9) and report uneasiness when engaging in such behavior(10). Consistent with these reports, physiological(11) and neurological(12) 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 than those who took a placebo(13). Thus, in the absence of an affective signal that can help curb dishonesty, people may engage in more frequent and severe acts”

The researchers conclusions include these observations: “Dishonesty significantly impacts our personal lives(9) and public institutions(34). Here, we provide empirical evidence that dishonesty gradually increases with repetition when all else is held constant (see(35) for dishonesty escalation in response to escalating rewards). . . . . Our results also suggest that dishonesty escalation is contingent on the motivation for the dishonest act. Specifically, while the magnitude of dishonesty was driven both by considerations of benefit to the self and benefit to the other [benefit another person(s) might gain], the escalation of dishonesty, as well as the amygdala’s response to it over time, was best accounted for by whether dishonesty was self-serving.”

In other words, dishonesty for self-interest appears to be a more powerful motivator than dishonesty that would benefit someone else.

Politics - A Personal Comment: America has entered in a new norm where dishonesty is rampant. There is no way to reconcile the clashing versions of reality, facts and reason that conservatives and populists generally adhere to compared to the versions that many or most others tend to adhere to. To the extent there is objective evidence, this norm is reflected in dishonesty by elected conservative-populist politicians. For example, president Trump has amassed an impressive list of at least 5,000 instances of making false or misleading claims as of September 2018. That record is probably unmatched by any other US president.

Given other aspects of the science of politics, to be discussed in subsequent discussions, it is likely that at least for the time being the new norm cannot be reversed and returned to the level of dishonesty that characterized politics sometime before the rise of Trump. That said, the new norm is not all due to Trump. The rise of dishonesty in politics has been growing for several decades. Trump just came along at the right time and demolished old norms that made dishonesty less attractive. Now, there is little political downside to be dishonest, at least on the political right, while the upside appears to be enormous.

Information source: The quotes given above are taken from the authors’ manuscript, which is here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5238933/

The final, reviewed and edited paper is published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, which is behind a paywall here: https://www.nature.com/articles/nn.4426

B&B orig:10/7/18