... The Effect of One Bad Apple on the Barrel....Great Paper ( F. Gino, S. Ayal, D. Ariely)

Contagion and Differentiation in
Unethical Behavior


The Effect of One Bad Apple on the Barrel


Francesca Gino, Shahar Ayal,and Dan Ariely


University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and


Duke University

ABSTRACT—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 impossibly
quickly and leaving the room with the maximum reward.
In line with social-norms theory, participants’ level of
unethical behavior increased when the confederate was an
in-group member, but decreased when the confederate was
an out-group member. In Experiment 2, our confederate
instead asked a question about cheating, which merely
strengthened the saliency of this possibility. This manipulation decreased the level of unethical behavior among the
other group members. These results suggest that individuals’ unethicality does not depend on the simple calculations of cost-benefit analysis, but rather depends on the
social norms implied by the dishonesty of others and also on
the saliency of dishonesty.
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