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First published online October 14, 2010

The Cultural Dynamics of Rewarding Honesty and Punishing Deception

Cynthia S. Wang and Angela K.-y. LeungView all authors and affiliations
Volume 36, Issue 11
https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167210385921

Abstract

Recent research suggests that individuals reward honesty more than they punish deception. Five experiments showed that different patterns of rewards and punishments emerge for North American and East Asian cultures. Experiment 1 demonstrated that Americans rewarded more than they punished, whereas East Asians rewarded and punished in equivalent amounts. Experiments 2 and 3 revealed that these divergent patterns by culture could be explained by greater social mobility experienced by Americans. Experiments 4 and 5 examined how certain consequences of social mobility, approach—avoidance behavioral motivations and trust and felt obligation, can lead to disparate reward and punishment decisions within the two cultures. Moreover, Experiment 4 revealed that Americans exhibited stronger evaluative reactions toward deception but stronger behavioral intentions toward honesty; East Asians did not exhibit this evaluative—behavioral asymmetry. The cross-cultural implications for understanding rewards and punishments in an increasingly globalized world are discussed.

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1.
1. Singapore is a Southeast Asian city-state with a Chinese ethnic majority.
2.
2. This can be tested in two ways. First, deceptive or honest behaviors affected participants’ absolute outcomes equally; for example, people gained $50 from honesty or lost $50 from deception. Second, deception and honesty had equal relative effects on participants’ wealth (Thaler, 1980); for example, if participants expected $150 but received $100, deception may be viewed as causing a 33% loss; if they expected $50 but received $100, honesty may be viewed as providing a 100% gain. To equalize relative change, participants expected to receive $75 rather than $50 in a relative honesty condition (but still received $100). Because past research found no differences between reactions to both absolute and relative honesty (Wang, Galinsky, & Murninghan, 2009), only the absolute honesty condition was included across all five experiments.
3.
3. We used Taiwanese and Singaporean Chinese as the East Asian populations because a majority of their ancestors originated from China.
4.
4. East Asian Americans were individuals of East Asian descent (e.g., Chinese, Korean) residing in the United States where the data were collected. In all, 32.3% self-reported as East Asian/East Asian American, 29.4% Chinese/Chinese American, 20.6% Southeast Asian American, and 13.2% Korean/Korean American.
5.
5. No significant main effect or interaction emerged as a function of participants believing the other player (all Fs < 2.5).

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Published In

Volume 36, Issue 11
Pages: 1529 - 1542
Article first published online: October 14, 2010
Issue published: November 2010

Keywords

  1. reward
  2. punishment
  3. honesty
  4. deception
  5. culture
  6. social mobility

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© 2010 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.
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PubMed: 20947774

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Cynthia S. Wang
National University of Singapore, Singapore, [email protected]
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Angela K.-y. Leung
Singapore Management University, Singapore
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