RIEB, Kobe University

The Effect of Anchoring on Dishonest Behavior

This study conducts experiments on dishonest behavior after anchoring the participants' expected reward to investigate the effect of anchoring on dishonest behavior. The experimental results show that those who are anchored to high reward behave less honestly than those anchored to low reward. This is because the anchoring changes participants' expected reward. Such a change in expected reward serve as participants' reference point to affect the likelihood of facing a loss frame where dishonest behaviors are more likely to occur.