Mead Nicole L, Baumeister Roy F, Gino Francesca, Schweitzer Maurice E, Ariely Dan
Florida State University.
J Exp Soc Psychol. 2009;45(3):594-597. doi: 10.1016/j.jesp.2009.02.004.
The opportunity to profit from dishonesty evokes a motivational conflict between the temptation to cheat for selfish gain and the desire to act in a socially appropriate manner. Honesty may depend on self-control given that self-control is the capacity that enables people to override antisocial selfish responses in favor of socially desirable responses. Two experiments tested the hypothesis that dishonesty would increase when people's self-control resources were depleted by an initial act of self-control. Depleted participants misrepresented their performance for monetary gain to a greater extent than did non-depleted participants (Experiment 1). Perhaps more troubling, depleted participants were more likely than non-depleted participants to expose themselves to the temptation to cheat, thereby aggravating the effects of depletion on cheating (Experiment 2). Results indicate that dishonesty increases when people's capacity to exert self-control is impaired, and that people may be particularly vulnerable to this effect because they do not predict it.
通过不诚实获利的机会引发了一种动机冲突，即出于自私的利益而作弊的诱惑与以符合社会规范的方式行事的愿望之间的冲突。鉴于自我控制是使人们能够克服反社会的自私反应而倾向于社会期望反应的能力，诚实可能取决于自我控制。两项实验检验了这样一个假设：当人们的自我控制资源因最初的自我控制行为而耗尽时，不诚实行为会增加。与未耗尽资源的参与者相比，资源耗尽的参与者为了金钱利益更严重地虚报自己的表现（实验1）。也许更令人不安的是，与未耗尽资源的参与者相比，资源耗尽的参与者更容易受到作弊诱惑的影响，从而加剧了资源耗尽对作弊行为的影响（实验2）。结果表明，当人们施加自我控制的能力受损时，不诚实行为会增加，而且人们可能特别容易受到这种影响，因为他们没有预料到这一点。
