title: Hormones and ethics: Understanding the biological basis of unethical conduct.
abstract: Globally, fraud has been rising sharply over the last decade, with current estimates placing financial losses at greater than $3.7 trillion annually. Unfortunately, fraud prevention has been stymied by lack of a clear and comprehensive understanding of its underlying causes and mechanisms. In this paper, we focus on an important but neglected topic--the biological antecedents and consequences of unethical conduct--using salivary collection of hormones (testosterone and cortisol). We hypothesized that preperformance cortisol levels would interact with preperformance levels of testosterone to regulate cheating behavior in 2 studies. Further, based on the previously untested cheating-as-stress-reduction hypothesis, we predicted a dose-response relationship between cheating and reductions in cortisol and negative affect. Taken together, this research marks the first foray into the possibility that endocrine-system activity plays an important role in the regulation of unethical behavior.
authors.affiliation: Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, Harvard University.
authors.forename: Jooa Julia
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-6650-7088
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: Negotiation, Organizations & Markets Unit, Harvard Business School, Harvard University.
authors.forename: Francesca
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Gino
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology.
authors.forename: Ellie Shuo
authors.initials: ES
authors.lastname: Jin
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology.
authors.forename: Leslie K
authors.initials: LK
authors.lastname: Rice
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology.
authors.forename: Robert A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Josephs
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D008192:Deception; D005260:Female; D005607:Fraud / Q000941:ethics* / Q000523:psychology; D006801:Humans; D006854:Hydrocortisone / Q000378:metabolism*; D008297:Male; D010865:Pilot Projects; D012463:Saliva / Q000378:metabolism; D013739:Testosterone / Q000378:metabolism*; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D013739:Testosterone; D006854:Hydrocortisone