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11 Jun 2012
Research & Ideas

When Business Competition Harms Society

Last winter, a senior admissions officer at Claremont McKenna College resigned, after admitting to inflating reported SAT scores of the incoming class for six years and sending the falsified reports to U.S. News and World Report. “It's very cheap to get a second... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Auto

2014
Article

The Burden of Guilt: Heavy Backpacks, Light Snacks, and Enhanced Morality

By: M. Kouchaki, F. Gino and A. Jami

Drawing on the embodied simulation account of emotional information processing, we argue that the physical experience of weight is associated with the emotional experience of guilt and thus that weight intensifies the experience of guilt. Across four studies, we found... View Details

Keywords: Moral Sensibility; Behavior; Nutrition; Emotions; Weight

July 2009
Article

When Misconduct Goes Unnoticed: The Acceptability of Gradual Erosion in Others' Unethical Behavior

By: Francesca Gino and Max Bazerman

Four laboratory studies show that people are more likely to accept others' unethical behavior when ethical degradation occurs slowly rather than in one abrupt shift. Participants served in the role of watchdogs charged with catching instances of cheating. The watchdogs... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Behavior

March 2012
Article

The Dark Side of Creativity: Original Thinkers Can Be More Dishonest

By: F. Gino and D. Ariely

Creativity is a common aspiration for individuals, organizations, and societies. Here, however, we test whether creativity increases dishonesty. We propose that a creative personality and a creative mindset promote individuals' ability to justify their behavior, which,... View Details

Keywords: Creativity; Ethics

2015
Working Paper

Thick as Thieves? Dishonest Behavior and Egocentric Social Networks

By: Jooa Julia Lee, Dong-Kyun Im, Bidhan Parmar and Francesca Gino

People experience a threat to their moral self-concept in the face of discrepancies between their moral values and their unethical behavior. We theorize that people's need to restore their view of themselves as moral activates thoughts of a high-density personal social... View Details

Keywords: Moral Sensibility; Behavior; Social and Collaborative Networks

SSRN

April 2014
Article

Evil Genius? How Dishonesty Can Lead to Greater Creativity

By: F. Gino and S. Wiltermuth

We propose that dishonest and creative behavior have something in common: they both involve breaking rules. Because of this shared feature, creativity may lead to dishonesty (as shown in prior work), and dishonesty may lead to creativity (the hypothesis we tested in... View Details

Keywords: Moral Sensibility; Creativity; Attitudes

2009
Working Paper

Dishonest Deed, Clear Conscience: Self-Preservation through Moral Disengagement and Motivated Forgetting

By: Lisa L. Shu, Francesca Gino and Max H. Bazerman

People routinely engage in dishonest acts without feeling guilty about their behavior. When and why does this occur? Across four studies, people justified their dishonest deeds through moral disengagement and exhibited motivated forgetting of information that might... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Moral Sensibility; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Behavior

Research Summary

Do Vertical Mergers facilitate Collusion?

Joint work with Volker Nocke, University of Pennsylvania In this paper we investigate the impact of vertical mergers on upstream firms' ability to sustain collusion. We show in a number of models that the net effect of vertical integration is to facilitate... View Details

Article

Contagion and Differentiation in Unethical Behavior: The Effect of One Bad Apple on the Barrel

By: F. Gino, S. Ayal and D. Ariely

In a world where encounters with dishonesty are frequent, it is important to know if exposure to other people's unethical behavior can increase or decrease an individual's dishonesty. In Experiment 1, our confederate cheated ostentatiously by finishing a task... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Behavior

22 Jan 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, January 22, 2019

price-based moves. Publisher's link: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=55474 in press Journal of Experimental Social Psychology A Counterfeit Competence: After Threat, Cheating Boosts One's Self-Image By: Wakeman W., C.... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

2011
Working Paper

The Dark Side of Creativity: Original Thinkers Can Be More Dishonest

By: Francesca Gino and Dan Ariely

Creativity is a common aspiration for individuals, organizations, and societies. Here, however, we test whether creativity increases dishonesty. We propose that a creative personality and creativity primes promote individuals' motivation to think outside the box and... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Behavior; Creativity; Motivation and Incentives; Personal Characteristics