The Impact Of Scarcity On Honest Behavior

Honesty,as an important moral trait,plays an important role in promoting social harmony and economic development.Most of the time people face tradeoffs between economic interests and honest motivation when making honest decisions,the personal honest motivation makes the individual behave more honestly,on the contrary,some external factors may also cause individuals to focus too much on their own interests and be dishonest,such as the sense of scarcity that is widely perceived in life.A large number of studies have shown that scarcity will make individuals have stronger self-interest motivation,and lead to the decline of individual self-control ability and other abilities,and whereas self-control ability is an important factor that affects honest behavior,so how does scarcity affect honest behavior?We conducted three studies(N = 293)to explore the impact of scarcity on honesty behavior and its underlying mechanism.study 1 explored the impact of money scarcity on honesty behavior,study 2 explored the impact of time scarcity on honesty behavior,and study 3 used HD-t DCS(high-definition transcranial direct current stimulation)perform neurological intervention on the left orbitofrontal cortex(l OFC),one of the key brain regions,it was used for to further explore the underlying mechanism of scarcity affecting honest behavior.Study 1 adopted a single factor between-subjects design,the independent variable is the sense of scarcity of money(money scarcity group,control group),the task situational priming paradigm is used to initiate the participants’ sense of money scarcity,and the dependent variable is the honesty proportion in the spot the difference task.The results found that the money scarcity group reported honest proportion was significantly lower than the control group.Further analysis found in the difficult situation,the money scarcity group reported honest proportion was significantly lower than the control group,while there was no significant difference in the very difficult condition.The result indicates that on the premise of not destroying honest self-image,subjects who perceive that money is scarce made fewer honest behaviors.Study 2 adopted a single factor between-subjects design,the independent variable is the sense of scarcity of time(time scarcity group,control group),the recall task is used to initiate the participants’ sense of time scarcity,and the dependent variable is the honesty proportion in the sender-receiver task.The results found that the proportion of real information delivered by the time scarcity group was significantly lower than the control group,and the amount of money given to the recipient by the time scarcity was low than the control group.Further analysis found that only in the conflict condition,the proportion of real information delivered by the time scarcity group was significantly lower than the control group,while there was no significant difference in the no conflict condition.The result indicates that only when self-interest is involved,subjects who feel that time is scarce made fewer honest behaviors.In order to further explore the underlying mechanism of scarcity influencing honest behavior,study 3 used HD-t DCS to manipulate the neural activity of left OFC,a key brain region associated with sense of scarcity,Study 3 adopted a single factor within-subjects design,and the independent variable was t DCS stimulation type(cathodal stimulation group,sham stimulation group),cathodal stimulation inhibited the neural activity of the left OFC,and sham stimulation has no effect.All subjects randomly received two stimulation,after stimulation started five minutes,then initiates the participant’s sense of scarcity,the dependent variable is the honesty proportion in the spot the difference task.The results found that compared with the sham stimulation,the cathodal stimulation over the left OFC had significantly increased the honest proportion of the subjects.This means that compared with the sham stimulation,inhibiting the neural activity of left OFC reduces the intensity of the sense of scarcity that the individual perceives,thereby increasing the honest behavior.The conclusion obtained from the results of the above three studies: the sense of scarcity has a negative effect on honesty behavior,whether it is when perceive money is scarce or time is scarce,individuals will make fewer honest behaviors.Furthermore,t DCS cathodal stimulation regulated the neural activity of left orbitofrontal cortex,then increased the individual’s honest behavior.