How contagious and detrimental are violations of the honesty norm?
The SSA members selected the following experimental study through a peer-reviewed voting process. It is a multi-lab study on the influence of expected and witnessed dishonesty on the truthful reporting of windfall gains and on trust
Wojtek Przepiorka & Aron Szekely and the SSA invite research laboratories and sociologists to join a coordinated experiment across international sites studying how dishonesty spreads, whether it spills over into trust, and whether peer punishment can contain it.
The research questions
Does dishonesty spread?
How does exposure to others' dishonest behavior shape beliefs and incentivized reporting, and can this contagion effect be reliably replicated across contexts?
Can ignorance prevent contagion?
Does withholding information about others' dishonesty act as a firebreak, reducing the spread of dishonest behavior to those who remain uninformed?
Does dishonesty spill over to trust?
Do violations of the honesty norm reshape trust and trustworthiness beyond the immediate context, undermining cooperation even among those not directly involved?
Can punishment contain it?
When dishonesty is revealed, does the availability of peer punishment restore cooperative norms or does it introduce new dynamics that complicate the picture?
Background
Foundational studies in Zürich, Switzerland, demonstrated that dishonesty is contagious, it spreads by shaping beliefs, and that ignorance of others' dishonest behavior can have a preventive effect. Yet, these findings are limited to a single setting.
The SSA inaugural project systematically addresses these limitations: single-site generalizability, the absence of peer punishment, and the unexplored connection between dishonesty and trust.
Why a multi-lab design?
A coordinated, pre-registered experiment across multiple international laboratories allows us to distinguish genuine behavioral patterns from idiosyncrasies of a single context. When findings hold across different cultural, institutional, and demographic settings under otherwise identical protocols, we can be substantially more confident in their robustness and generalizability.
Three research objectives
What this project sets out to establish
Robustness of the ignorance effect
Establish whether the preventive effect of ignorance, shielding people from knowledge of others' dishonesty reduces its spread, is robust across multiple international laboratory settings with diverse participant populations.
Spillover effects on trust
Investigate whether witnessing or being downstream of dishonest behavior produces spillover effects on trust and trustworthiness, connecting the honesty literature to the broader study of cooperation.
Peer punishment as a remedy
Identify whether, and under what conditions, peer punishment can contain the detrimental cascade triggered by revealed dishonesty, testing a key theoretical mechanism largely neglected in prior work.
Behavioral tasks & measures
Die-Rolling Task
Incentivized task measuring honest reporting of privately observed outcomes.
Trust Game
Dyadic exchange task measuring trust and trustworthiness between participants.
Supporting measures include beliefs and expectations about others' behavior and the HEXACO personality inventory to assess dispositional honesty-humility.
Experimental conditions
Ignorance
Dishonesty of others is withheld from participants.
Revealed
Others' dishonesty is made visible to participants.
Punishment
Revealed dishonesty with peer punishment available.
Treatments manipulate exposure to others' dishonesty by hiding or revealing this information, and allow peer punishment to occur in one condition. All labs follow a standardized, pre-registered protocol ensuring cross-site consistency.
Study lead researchers
Przepiorka & Szekely (2026)
Bern, Switzerland
Collegio Carlo Alberto, Turin & CNR, Rome, Italy
Online Project Workshop
Project Introduction & Q&A
An online workshop will be organized to introduce the study to all prospective contributors. The session will walk through the research questions, experimental design, and practical protocol in detail, with dedicated time for open questions and discussion.
All contributors will be notified of the registration link directly. Attendance is strongly encouraged before committing to a role.
Online · Open to all prospective contributors
Dedicated time for questions from all prospective contributors
22 June 2026 — notified by email to all who express interest
Call for participation
Three ways to contribute
This is an open call for collaborators who want to help make the SSA's inaugural project a success. Applications are currently invited for three distinct roles.
Research Laboratories / Teams
Implement the standardized experimental protocol at your local site. Responsibilities include translating materials, obtaining ethical approval, recruiting participants, and running sessions.
Max. 2 people per lab locationInclude in your application
- Institution and laboratory facilities
- Prior experience running behavioral experiments
- Expected participant pool
- Language(s) in which the study could be conducted
- Availability of financial means (if any)
Programmer
Implement the study in oTree, the leading platform for economic and behavioral experiments. Work closely with the lead researchers during implementation and testing phases.
Include in your application
- Prior experience with oTree or related experimental software
- Examples of relevant projects
- Availability for collaboration during implementation and testing
Data Analysts
Support pre-registration, data consolidation, curation, and multi-site statistical analysis. Ensure reproducible workflows across the full project lifecycle.
Include in your application
- Experience with pre-registration
- Multi-site data management
- Reproducible analytical workflows
- Statistical analysis of experimental data
How to apply
Express your interest
Fill in the participation form to express your interest. Indicate information relevant to your role (see above). The SSA will provide institutional infrastructure and support for publication in leading sociology journals. This project is conceived as a crowdsourced collaborative initiative. Financial support from labs is welcome and appreciated.