Trivial acts of dishonesty are very prevalent in everyday life and have severe economic and societal consequences. The present study aims to examine the role of descriptive and injunctive norms in minor and major dishonesty under ambiguity. We devised a novel experimental design in which rule violations can be the result of honest mistakes or various dishonest processes. In this ambiguous context, we observed a high prevalence of minor rule violations at baseline. In two experiments, exposure to increased peer cheating (i.e., negative descriptive norms) promoted major rule violations, whereas the presence of explicit or subtle rule reminders (i.e., injunctive norms) marginally reduced minor rule violations but had no impact on major rule violations. We interpret these findings within the framework of social norm theory, self‐maintenance theory, and bounded ethicality. Implications regarding policies that target ordinary unethical behavior are discussed.

中文翻译：

---

诚实的错误或可能不是诚实的：描述性和禁令性规范在不诚实程度方面的作用

琐碎的不诚实行为在日常生活中非常普遍，并造成严重的经济和社会后果。本研究旨在探讨描述性和禁令性规范在歧义下轻微和主要不诚实行为中的作用。我们设计了一种新颖的实验设计，其中违反规则的原因可能是诚实的错误或各种不诚实的过程。在这种模棱两可的背景下，我们观察到基线时普遍存在轻微违反规则的情况。在两个实验中，暴露于增加的同伴作弊行为（即消极的描述性规范）促进了主要规则的违反，而显式或微妙的规则提示（即禁令规范）的出现在一定程度上减少了次要规则的违反，但对主要规则的违反没有影响。我们在社会规范理论，自我维持理论，和有限的道德 讨论了针对针对普通不道德行为的政策的含义。