Influence Of Moral Word Information On Lying Behavior Under Cognitive Load Condition

Lying as an individual's ability to adapt to the environment has received widespread attention from researchers.First,the standard economic model considers people to be completely rational and selfish.When there is an external beneficial temptation,individuals will maximize their income through lying behavior.Secondly,cognitive control theory holds that human behavior is controlled by self.Self-control requires cognitive support.When individual cognitive resources are depleted,individual self-control ability will decrease and lying behavior will increase.In addition,the self-concept maintenance theory believes that although people lie,it will not be serious enough to affect the individual's positive self-concept.Researches on lying behavior have become more sophisticated,and researches on lying behavior have shifted from the previous discussion of the factors affecting lying behavior to explore which factors can help inhibit individual lying behavior.In the study of how to suppress the individual's lying behavior,moral factors have been proved by many studies to inhibit the individual's lying behavior.Morality refers to the social norms and moral morality that are accepted widely.Individuals construct moral self-pattern according to their own cognition,experience and evaluation of morality.Therefore,when people's behaviors are not in line with moral standards.Individual's moral self-patterns are threatened,and the process of eliminating moral self-pattern threats helps individuals reduce unethical behavior.Most of the existing researches on the impact of morality on lying behavior are carried out in laboratory environment with a single situation,which is different from the cognitive load state of people in real life.Therefore,it is meaningful to study whether moral factors will affect the lying behavior under load conditions and what kind of impact will occur.In the existing researches on cognitive load on lying behavior,although most studies have proved that the higher the load,the more lying behavior of the subjects,there are also inconsistent conclusions.The cognitive load tasks used in different studies are inconsistent,which may be a factor in controversy.In response to the above problems,Experiment 1 used the classic working memory load task to study the influence of cognitive load on lying,and explored the specific trends of lying behavior under different load levels.Experiment 2 was based on Experiment 1 to study the influence of moral word information on lying behavior under high cognitive load condition,and to explore whether morality would have an impact under high cognitive load condition and what kind of effect it would have.The results of the study are as follows :(1)There was no significant difference in the lying behavior between the unloaded group and the 1-back load group.However,there was a significant difference in the lying behavior among the unloaded group,the 2-back load group and the 3-back load group.(2)In the vocabulary 3-back task,the lying behavior of the moral-word 3-back group was significantly less than the neutral 3-back group.Moreover,the effect of the 3-back task itself on the behavior of lying was ruled out,which indicated that the difference between the two groups was caused by moral word information.The conclusions of the study are as follows:(1)The higher the cognitive load,the more lying behaviors of the subjects;(2)The moral word information can still inhibit the individual's lying behavior under high load condition.