About the talk:
Authorities and managers often rely on individuals’ and businesses’ self-reports and may employ honesty pledges to ensure that those individuals and businesses do not over-claim payments, benefits, or other resources. These pledges may come in various modes, from simple veracity statements on a form, through legal affidavits, to public oaths or vows. In this talk, I will review the existing research evidence on the effectiveness and public acceptance of different types of honesty pledges, and their implications for using pledges to curb dishonesty in organizations and public policy. I will focus specifically on the role of involvement and engagement with the pledge and their importance for ensuring pledges’ effectiveness for the short and long term. Finally, I will discuss potential mechanisms that may underlie pledges’ effectiveness to suggest that ambiguity reduction may explain why honesty pledges curb unethical behavior.

Eyal Peer is working at the School of Public Policy at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel.