Cheating more for less: Upward social comparisons motivate the poorly compensated to cheat

• We examine how economic motives and fairness concerns interact to influence cheating.
• We manipulate pay-level and awareness of others’ pay in a task that allows cheating.
• Underpaid participants cheat more only when they are aware others are earning more.
• Effect is driven by aversive social comparisons, rather than counterfactual thinking.
• Fairness concerns override economic motives for the underpaid.

Intuitively, people should cheat more when cheating is more lucrative, but we find that the effect of performance-based pay-rates on dishonesty depends on how readily people can compare their pay-rate to that of others. In Experiment 1, participants were paid 5 cents or 25 cents per self-reported point in a trivia task, and half were aware that they could have received the alternative pay-rate. Lower pay-rates increased cheating when the prospect of a higher pay-rate was salient. Experiment 2 illustrates that this effect is driven by the ease with which poorly compensated participants can compare their pay to that of others who earn a higher pay-rate. Our results suggest that low pay-rates are, in and of themselves, unlikely to promote dishonesty. Instead, it is the salience of upward social comparisons that encourages the poorly compensated to cheat.