| Summary: | Do people cheat more
when they have something to gain, or when they have something to lose? The
answer to this question isn’t straightforward, as research is mixed when it
comes to understanding how unethical people will be when they might acquire
something good versus avoid something bad. To wit, research has found that
people cheat more in a loss (vs. gain) frame, yet research on regulatory focus
has found that people cheat more in a promotion focus (where the focus is on
acquiring gains) than in a prevention focus (where the focus is on avoiding
losses). Through a large-scale field study containing 332,239 observations
including 27,350 transgressions, we address the contradictory results of
gain/loss frames and regulatory focus on committing unethical behavior in a
context that contains a high risk of detecting unethical behavior (NFL football
games). Our results replicated the separate effects of more cheating in a loss
frame, and more cheating in a promotion focus. Furthermore, our data revealed a
heretofore undocumented crossover interaction, in accordance with regulatory
fit, which could disentangle past results: Specifically, we found promotion
focus is associated with more cheating in a loss (vs. gain) frame, whereas
prevention focus is associated with more cheating in a gain (vs. loss) frame.
In gridiron football, this translates to offensive players fouling more when
their team is losing (vs. winning) and defensive players fouling more when
their team is winning (vs. losing).
|
|---|
