The impact of a sense of belonging on truth-telling and the role of gender

IF 1.4 3区经济学 Q2 ECONOMICS

Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics Pub Date : 2025-08-22 DOI:10.1016/j.socec.2025.102430

Guy Barokas , Oded Ravid

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

This study uses an online experiment to explore the effect of belongingness in promoting honesty and how this is affected by gender. Each participant in the treatment group was assigned to the subgroup with which they most closely identified, while participants in control group they were randomly assigned to non-identified subgroups. Participants reported the outcomes of unmonitored die rolls, with honesty incentivized by collective bonuses. The results show that the treatment group experienced a stronger sense of belonging and reported more honestly than the control group, confirming the overall effect of belongingness on truthfulness. We also identified a correlation between the degree of belongingness and honesty across subgroups. A post hoc analysis of gender variations revealed that women demonstrated a stronger sense of belonging and a higher level of honesty. Notably, while the effect of belongingness on honesty was significant among women, it was not statistically significant for men. These findings highlight belongingness as a key factor in ethical behavior, particularly for women, with implications for policy design in many contexts.

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归属感对讲真话的影响和性别的作用

本研究通过一个在线实验来探索归属感在促进诚实方面的作用，以及这种作用如何受到性别的影响。治疗组的每个参与者被分配到他们最熟悉的亚组，而对照组的参与者被随机分配到不熟悉的亚组。参与者报告了不受监督的掷骰子结果，集体奖金激励他们诚实。结果显示，治疗组比对照组有更强的归属感和更诚实的报告，证实了归属感对真实性的整体影响。我们还发现了归属感程度和诚实度之间的相关性。对性别差异的事后分析显示，女性表现出更强的归属感和更高的诚实度。值得注意的是，归属感对诚实度的影响在女性中是显著的，而在男性中则没有统计学意义。这些发现强调了归属感是道德行为的关键因素，尤其是对女性来说，这对许多情况下的政策设计都有影响。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics ECONOMICS-

CiteScore

2.60

自引率

12.50%

发文量

113

审稿时长

83 days

期刊介绍： The Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly the Journal of Socio-Economics) welcomes submissions that deal with various economic topics but also involve issues that are related to other social sciences, especially psychology, or use experimental methods of inquiry. Thus, contributions in behavioral economics, experimental economics, economic psychology, and judgment and decision making are especially welcome. The journal is open to different research methodologies, as long as they are relevant to the topic and employed rigorously. Possible methodologies include, for example, experiments, surveys, empirical work, theoretical models, meta-analyses, case studies, and simulation-based analyses. Literature reviews that integrate findings from many studies are also welcome, but they should synthesize the literature in a useful manner and provide substantial contribution beyond what the reader could get by simply reading the abstracts of the cited papers. In empirical work, it is important that the results are not only statistically significant but also economically significant. A high contribution-to-length ratio is expected from published articles and therefore papers should not be unnecessarily long, and short articles are welcome. Articles should be written in a manner that is intelligible to our generalist readership. Book reviews are generally solicited but occasionally unsolicited reviews will also be published. Contact the Book Review Editor for related inquiries.