Smug Alert! Exploring self-licensing behavior in a cheating game

•The study tests the impact of the moral credit model on dishonest behavior.•We ran a cheating experiment in a developing country context.•Results demonstrate that good deeds increase cheating.•We find both gender and origin effects.

We test experimentally a prediction of the 'moral credit model', in which committing a virtuous act creates moral credits that can license immoral behavior in a succeeding decision. We use a basic cheating experiment that was either preceded by a virtuous deed or not in a developing country context. We found that people who previously achieved a good deed cheat more. Gender and origin are also significant explicative variables for cheating.