Graduate School of Human-Environment Studies, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Fukuoka, Japan.
Department of Psychiatry, The First Hospital of China Medical University, China Medical University, Shenyang, Liaoning, China.
PLoS One. 2023 Dec 21;18(12):e0294484. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0294484. eCollection 2023.
An earlier study suggested that individuals tend to be more dishonest in darker environments, this phenomenon was attributed to an increase in participants' perceived anonymity. However, instead of using quantifiable measurements, the original experiment depended on the experimenter's subjective observation to construct different brightness conditions, which led to a less precise understanding of the phenomenon. Additionally, the task used in the original experiment has recently been criticized as being unsuitable for dishonesty-detection studies. This study addressed these concerns to retest the effect of brightness on dishonest behavior. This study employed lux as a unit to accurately control the brightness within the experiment room. Moreover, the coin toss task which is frequently employed in dishonesty-detection experiments, was utilized instead of the task in the original experiment. The findings revealed that despite altering the content of the task, dishonesty increased in the dark condition. Contrary to the findings in the original experiment, however, the results did not substantiate that perceived anonymity was the driving factor of the effect of brightness on dishonesty. This discrepancy suggests that further empirical considerations are warranted to unravel the underlying mechanisms.
先前的研究表明，个体在较暗的环境中往往更倾向于不诚实，这种现象归因于参与者感知匿名性的增加。然而，原始实验并未采用可量化的测量方法，而是依赖于实验者的主观观察来构建不同的亮度条件，这导致对该现象的理解不够精确。此外，原始实验中使用的任务最近受到批评，认为其不适合不诚实检测研究。本研究旨在解决这些问题，重新测试亮度对不诚实行为的影响。本研究采用勒克斯作为单位，精确控制实验室内的亮度。此外，我们使用了在不诚实检测实验中经常使用的抛硬币任务，而非原始实验中的任务。研究结果表明，尽管改变了任务的内容，不诚实行为在黑暗条件下还是有所增加。然而，与原始实验的结果相反，结果并未证实感知匿名性是亮度对不诚实行为影响的驱动因素。这种差异表明，需要进一步进行实证研究来揭示潜在的机制。
