Dishonest behavior is not affected by an image of watching eyes

Previous research has demonstrated that implicit reputation cues promote prosocial behaviors. However, the effect of implicit reputation cues on dishonesty has not been investigated in the laboratory. An image depicting observant eyes has been used as an implicit reputation cue in previous studies. Three experiments were conducted to investigate whether the use of such an image was significantly associated with dishonesty. In the current study, participants had opportunities to cheat to obtain higher economic profits (Experiments 1 and 2) or to appear more intelligent (Experiments 1 and 3). The participants were randomly assigned to the watching eyes image or a neutral image conditions. There was no difference in the extent of dishonesty between the two conditions. Notably, these results were consistent across different tasks and different motivations for dishonesty. Our results extended findings from previous studies on the effects of an image of watching eyes and demonstrated that implicit reputation cues may not decrease dishonest behaviors. Thus, explicit reputation cues may be necessary in interventions for dishonesty.