Cheating and incentives in a performance context: Evidence from a field experiment on children

B-Tier
Journal: Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization
Year: 2020
Volume: 179
Issue: C
Pages: 681-701

Score contribution per author:

0.670 = (α=2.01 / 3 authors) × 1.0x B-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

We study cheating behavior in a large sample of elementary school children in the context of a creative performance task, in the presence and absence of performance incentives. Our data come from a sample of 720 elementary school children with an average age of 8, and contain rich information on a large set of correlates, such as risk and time preferences, IQ, gender and family characteristics. We document that children with higher IQ and higher socioeconomic status have a higher likelihood of cheating. We find that the presence of incentives for better performance does not increase cheating behavior. We also document an interesting interaction between altruism and incentives: altruistic students cheat significantly less in the presence of incentives.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:eee:jeborg:v:179:y:2020:i:c:p:681-701
Journal Field
Theory
Author Count
3
Added to Database
2026-01-24