We examine whether changes in perceived norm of dishonesty can offset the effects of changes in benefit from the dishonest action. We find partial support for the hypothesis in laboratory experiments on lying behavior in a cheap-talk sender-receiver game, conducted in two countries. In the experiments, we vary benefit from lying and shift senders’ norm perception by providing them information on lying from prior sessions. The findings suggest that senders adjust their perceived norm as expected, but they respond to norm in a somewhat self-serving manner. Specifically, when benefit from lying is lowered but senders are induced to believe in a higher norm of lying, they lie significantly more than when norm is not intervened. However, when benefit from lying is raised, our intervention to shift perceived norm of lying downward succeeds in altering senders’ belief as intended, but does not lower lying significantly. The results can be conceived as an indirect evidence of the challenge in curbing dishonesty by reducing private pecuniary gains in a society with a culture of dishonesty, while suggesting that even societies with history of low dishonesty may succumb to dishonesty when pecuniary incentives for dishonesty rise.

我们研究了不诚实行为感知规范的改变是否可以抵消不诚实行为带来的利益变化带来的影响。在两个国家进行的廉价通话收发游戏中，关于说谎行为的实验室实验得到了部分支持。在实验中，我们通过向发送者提供有关先前会话的说谎信息来改变他们从说谎和改变发送者的规范感知中获得的收益。研究结果表明，发件人会按预期调整自己的感知规范，但他们会以某种自我维护的方式对规范做出回应。具体来说，当降低撒谎带来的利益，但诱使发送者相信更高的撒谎规范时，与不干预规范相比，他们撒谎的可能性要大得多。但是，当从说谎中获得收益时，我们采取的干预措施可以改变人们对撒谎的看法，从而成功地改变了发送者的意图，但并没有显着降低撒谎。结果可以被认为是通过减少不诚实文化的社会中私人金钱收益来遏制不诚实的挑战的间接证据，同时表明即使有不诚实历史的社会也可能在金钱上的不诚实诱因上升时屈服于不诚实。