Overriding a moral default for honesty or dishonesty

Autor: Nobuhito Abe
Rok vydání: 2020
Předmět:
Zdroj: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
ISSN: 1091-6490
0027-8424
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2014489117
Popis: Significance Considering the immense economic costs associated with dishonest behavior, such as tax evasion or music piracy, reducing dishonesty is of great relevance to policy-makers. However, targeting dishonesty with interventions requires a thorough understanding of the underlying (neuro)cognitive processes. We combine neuroimaging with a task that pioneers in measuring the neural mechanisms underlying (dis)honesty. While replicating previous findings that greed drives dishonesty, we reveal that self-referential thinking processes promoted honest behavior. Moreover, we found that cognitive control does not serve the same purpose across individuals but facilitates honest decisions for cheaters, whereas it enables cheating for honest participants. We thus observe that different processes prevent dishonesty for different individuals, which can prove instrumental in the development of more effective interventions.
Every day, we are faced with the conflict between the temptation to cheat for financial gains and maintaining a positive image of ourselves as being a “good person.” While it has been proposed that cognitive control is needed to mediate this conflict between reward and our moral self-image, the exact role of cognitive control in (dis)honesty remains elusive. Here we identify this role, by investigating the neural mechanism underlying cheating. We developed a task which allows for inconspicuously measuring spontaneous cheating on a trial-by-trial basis in the MRI scanner. We found that activity in the nucleus accumbens promotes cheating, particularly for individuals who cheat a lot, while a network consisting of posterior cingulate cortex, temporoparietal junction, and medial prefrontal cortex promotes honesty, particularly in individuals who are generally honest. Finally, activity in areas associated with cognitive control (anterior cingulate cortex and inferior frontal gyrus) helped dishonest participants to be honest, whereas it enabled cheating for honest participants. Thus, our results suggest that cognitive control is not needed to be honest or dishonest per se but that it depends on an individual’s moral default.
Databáze: OpenAIRE