Darkness 'can license dishonesty'

Darkness 'can license dishonesty'

Washington, Mar 2 : Dim lighting and sunglasses can encourage dishonest
and unethical behavior, a new study finds.

The study has been published in Psychological Science, a journal of the
Association for Psychological Science.

To reach the conclusion, psychological scientists Chen-Bo Zhong, Vanessa
K. Bohns (both of University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management),
and Francesca Gino (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
conducted three experiments to test whether darkness can license
dishonest and self-interested behaviors.

In the first experiment, participants were placed in a dimly or well-lit
room and received a brown envelope that contained 10 dollars along with
one empty white envelope. They were then asked to complete a worksheet
with 20 matrices, each consisting of 12 three-digit numbers. The
participants had five minutes to find two numbers in each matrix that
added up to 10. The researchers left it up to the participants to score
their own work and for each pair of numbers correctly identified they
could keep 0.50 dollars from their supply of money. At the end of the
experiment, the participants were asked to place the remainder of their
money into the white envelope on their way out. While there was no
difference in actual performance, participants in the slightly dim room
cheated more and thus earned more undeserved money than those in a
well-lit room.

In the second experiment, some participants wore a pair of sunglasses
and others wore clear glasses while interacting with an ostensible
stranger in a different room (in actuality participants interacted with
the experimenter). Each person had USD 6 to allocate between him-or
herself and the recipient and could keep what he or she didn't offer.

Participants wearing sunglasses behaved more selfishly by giving
significantly less than those wearing clear glasses.

In the third experiment, the scientists replicated the previous
experiment and then measured the extent to which participants felt
anonymous during the experiment. Once again, those wearing sunglasses
gave significantly less money and furthermore, those wearing sunglasses
reported feeling more anonymous during the study.

Across all three experiments, darkness had no bearing on actual
anonymity, yet it still increased morally questionable behaviors.

The researchers suggest that the experience of darkness may induce a
sense of anonymity that is disproportionate from actual anonymity in a
given situation.

Zhong explains, "Imagine that a person alone in a closed room is
deciding whether to lie to a total stranger in an email. Clearly,
whether the room is well-lit or not would not affect the person's actual
level of anonymity. Nevertheless, darkness may license unethical
behavior in such situations."