Winning a competition predicts future dishonest behavior, say researchers

"We already know that some politicians and business executives will often resort to unethical means to win, for example the recent Volkswagen scandal," explains Dr. Amos Schurr, a lecturer in BGU's Guilford Glazer Faculty of Business and Management and member of the University's Decision Making and Economic Psychology Center. "Our research was focused on who is more likely to subsequently engage in unrelated unethical behaviors -- winners or losers?"

The researchers found that after a competition is over, winners behave more dishonestly than losers in an unrelated subsequent task. Furthermore, the subsequent unethical behavior effect seems to depend on winning, rather than on mere success.

The research group conducted five studies with students in Israel. The first two studies demonstrated that winning a competition increases the likelihood of winners to steal money from their counterparts in a subsequent unrelated task. Studies 3a and 3b demonstrated that the effect holds only when winning means performing better than others, but not when success is determined by chance or in reference to a personal goal.

The last study, a post-competition survey, suggested that winners felt a sense of entitlement after besting their opponents in the initial competition, which the researchers say explains why they were more likely to cheat in the second contest. The subsequent unethical behavior effect seems to depend on winning, rather than on mere success.

"These findings suggest that the way in which people measure success affects their honesty. When success is measured by social comparison, as is the case when winning a competition, dishonesty increases," Schurr explains. "When success does not involve social comparison, as is the case when meeting a set goal, defined standard or recalling a personal achievement, dishonesty decreases."

The researchers concluded that, "It is difficult to overstate the importance of competition in advancing economic growth, technological progress, wealth creation, social mobility, and greater equality. At the same time, however, it is vital to recognize the role of competition in eliciting censurable conduct.

"A greater tendency toward unethicality by winners is likely to impede social mobility and equality, exacerbating disparities in society rather than alleviating them. Finding ways to predict and overcome these tendencies may be a fruitful topic for the future study."

Prof. Ilana Ritov of Hebrew University's School of Education and The Federmann Center for the Study of Rationality was also a researcher on this study. The research was supported by the I-CORE program of the Planning and Budgeting Committee, the Israel Science Foundation (Grant 1821/12), and by the Guilford Glazer Faculty of Business and Management, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.