Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/92391 
Year of Publication: 
2013
Series/Report no.: 
Working Paper No. 132
Publisher: 
University of Zurich, Department of Economics, Zurich
Abstract: 
We conducted an experiment with 182 inmates from a maximum-security prison to analyze the impact of criminal identity on dishonest behavior. We randomly primed half of the prisoners to increase the mental saliency of their criminal identity, while treating the others as the control group. The results demonstrate that prisoners become more dishonest when we render their criminal identity more salient in their minds. An additional placebo experiment with regular citizens shows that the effect is specific to individuals with a criminal identity. Moreover, our experimental measure of dishonesty correlates with inmates' offenses against in-prison regulation. Altogether, these findings suggest that criminal identity plays a crucial role in rule violating behavior.
Subjects: 
Dishonesty
Identity
Crime
Prison
Experiment
JEL: 
K00
C93
K14
K42
Z10
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
194.39 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.