Number of words: 5938
EGO DEPLETION AND UNETHICAL BEHAVIOR:
RECOGNIZING DECEPTION IN THE MARKETPLACE
by
STÉPHANIE SUIJKER
University of Groningen Faculty of Economics and Business
MSc BA Marketing
May, 2013
Nieuwe Boteringestraat 74A 9712 PP Groningen
(06) 15609735 s.h.suijker@student.rug.nl
student number 1778668
ABSTRACT
The present research tested two competing hypotheses of the impact of ego depletion on recognizing deception: the self-interested hypothesis versus the moral awareness hypothesis. If the self-interested hypothesis is true, ego depletion results in disapproving the advertising more when people are involved themselves. When someone else is involved, ego depletion doesn’t make a difference. If the moral awareness hypothesis is true, ego depletion results in approving the advertising more, regardless of who’s involved. Therefore, the concept of involvement was introduced in order to test these two competing hypotheses. Overall, hardly no significant main effects and interaction effects were found. Limitations and directions for future research are discussed.
Key words: ego depletion, deception, unethical behavior
Research theme: Ethics in the Marketplace
Supervisor: dr. M.C. Leliveld
1. INTRODUCTION
It might not be uncommon to you that after a long and tiresome day at the office you still have to do some groceries. As you enter the local grocery store, there are a lot of signs and cues present in order to catch your attention to buy a specific product. However, after such a hard working day you are simply too tired to notice all this. You might feel more like taking an easy decision which does not take that much effort.
The above situation outlines the concept of ego depletion. People engage in multiple tasks during the day. When these tasks are difficult or frustrating, they absorb a lot of energy. As a consequence, ego depletion occurs. Ego depletion means a temporary reduction in the resource related to this energy to perform the task. As a consequence of ego depletion, the performance at a subsequent task could be impaired.
Returning to the above grocery situation, the signs and cues could involve misleading information. Indeed, the Dutch Advertising Code Committee website, an accessible organ where every consumer can complain about (misleading) advertising, handles an annual average of 1100 complaints about various companies (2009). According to the Federal Trade Commission website, America’s nation’s consumer protection agency, deceptive advertising occurs if ‘first, there is a representation, omission or practice that, second, is likely to mislead consumers acting reasonably under the circumstances, and third, the representation, omission or practice is material’ (2010). According to Gardner (1975: 42), deception is said to exist if ‘an advertisement (or advertising campaign) leaves the consumer with an impression and/or belief different from what would normally be expected if the consumer had reasonable knowledge, and that impression and/or belief is factually untrue or potentially misleading’. As such, both the Federal Trade Commission as Gardner (1975) acknowledge the likeliness or the potential of advertising to be misleading as enough evidence to state that deception occurs.
As said before, if your ego is depleted, your performance at a subsequent task could be impaired.
Therefore, could it be that if you are ‘tired’, you recognize misleading advertising differently or even not at all? If this is true, consumer behavior will be influenced.
In the next paragraph, the concept of ego depletion will be explained in more detail. As deception can be seen as an unethical practice, special attention will be given to the relationship between ego depletion and unethical behavior. At the end, the hypotheses of this study are given.
The Concept of Ego Depletion
By conducting a series of experiments, Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Muraven and Dice (1998) were one of the first who discovered the significance of ego depletion (see also Schmeichel, Baumeister & Vohs, 2003; Inzlicht, McKay & Aronson, 2006; Baumeister, Sparks, Stillman &
Vohs, 2008; Fischer, Frey & Greitemeyer, 2008; Hofmann, Strack & Deutsch, 2008; Muraven, 2008). During their first experiment, participants were assigned to two conditions: either the radish condition or the chocolate condition. Participants were asked to taste the assigned food.
After tasting the food, the participants were asked to fill in some questionnaires. However, before filling in the questionnaires, the participants worked on a test of problem solving under the guise that it was necessary to wait at least fifteen minutes before filling in the questionnaires to allow the sensory memory of the food to fade. The problem solving task was presented as if it was unrelated to the tasting task, but in fact it constituted the main dependent measure.
Baumeister et al. (1998) found that the participants in the radish condition said they had to force themselves more to eat the assigned food than participants in the chocolate condition. The participants in the radish condition also rated resisting the non-assigned food (which was chocolate in their case) as more difficult. Moreover, participants in the radish condition quitted sooner on the frustrating task of problem solving than did participants in the chocolate condition, or the no-food (control) condition. Finally, participants in the radish condition indicated that they felt more tired than participants in the chocolate condition, or the no-food (control) condition.
Baumeister et al. (1998) found some further interesting results in a second experiment in which participants were asked to complete several personality questionnaires. Participants then completed the regulatory-depletion task, a frequently used depletion manipulation (see also Moller, Deci & Ryan, 2006; Fischer, Greitemeyer & Frey, 2007; Wan & Sternthal, 2008; Wan, Rucker, Tormala & Clarkson, 2010). Participants were given a typewritten sheet of paper with
meaningless text on it and they were told to cross off all instances of the letter e. However, for participants who were assigned to the ego depletion condition, the task was made more difficult, requiring them to apply multiple rules. For instance, they were told that they should only cross off the letter e if it was not next to another vowel or one extra letter away from another vowel (thus one would not cross off the letter e in the word vowel). Afterwards, the participants had to watch a boring movie and they had to answer a few simple questions about it. Importantly, it was told to the participants that it was up to them when to stop watching the movie as it was rather long. Again, the participants were assigned to two conditions: the active quit condition and the passive quit condition. Participants in the active quit condition were told to ring the buzzer when they were done watching the movie; participants in the passive quite condition were told to hold down the button as long as they wanted to watch more of the movie and releasing the button would cause the movie to stop.
Baumeister et al. (1998) found that the prior exertion of self-control (the more difficult regulatory-depletion task) has an impact on decision making by making people more passive (see also Baumeister, Sparks, Stillman & Vohs, 2008). Participants in the ego depletion condition watched more of the movie when quitting required an active response than when involving a passive response. As Baumeister et al. (1998) found no difference in movie duration as a function of which response was active versus passive in the no-ego depletion condition, the results indicate that participants who were depleted were more likely to take the passive route compared to participants who were not as depleted.
By conducting the above experiments, Baumeister et al. (1998) found that a preliminary act of self-control (resisting temptation) undermines the performance of self-control in a subsequent, unrelated domain (persistence at a difficult and frustrating task; see also Baumeister, Vohs &
Tice, 2007). When one act of volition has taken place, ego depletion occurs. This is defined as ‘a temporary reduction in the self’s capacity or willingness to engage in volitional action caused by prior exercise of volition’ (Baumeister et al., 1998: 1253). Moreover, Baumeister et al. (1998) found that people are more inclined to make passive responses following ego depletion. These findings imply that two very different acts of self-control draw on the same limited resource which is related to strength and energy (see also Muraven, Tice & Baumeister, 1998; Vohs &
Heatherton, 2000). This limited resource is recognized as the controlling aspect of the self and is responsible for some crucial functions such as taking responsibility, initiating and inhibiting behavior, and making choices and decisions (Baumeister et al., 1998).
The ego depletion model has received considerable empirical support across a variety of studies (e.g. Baumeister & Vohs, 2007; Baumeister et al., 2007; Martijn, Alberts, Merckelbach, Havermans, Huijts & De Vries, 2007; Tyler, 2008). These studies worked from the model’s assumption that engaging in self-control depletes ego strength, which in turn diminishes cognitive self-control immediately thereafter. The significance of ego depletion was supported by a meta-analysis including 198 effect sizes involving a total of 10.782 participants (Hagger, Wood, Stiff & Chatzisarantis, 2010). A significant overall ego depletion effect was found.
When applying the above findings to the current study, it implies that ego depletion could lead to recognizing misleading advertising differently or even not at all as you are too tired to notice it.
Ego Depletion and Unethical Behavior
As deception can be seen as an unethical practice, it is interesting to focus on the relationship between ego depletion and unethical behavior. A recent stream of research explored the link between ego depletion and unethical behavior (e.g. Mead, Baumeister, Gino, Schweitzer &
Ariely, 2009; Thau & Mitchell, 2010; Barnes, Schaubroeck, Huth & Ghumman, 2011; Gino, Schweitzer, Mead & Ariely, 2011).
Mead et al. (2009) investigated whether honesty, a form of ethical behavior, may depend on self- control. Self-control is defined broadly as ‘the capacity to alter one’s responses, such as overriding some impulses, in order to bring behavior in line with goals or standards’ (Carver &
Scheier, 1981; Baumeister, Heatherton & Tice, 1994). The human social life incorporates many rules and standards, including moral rules to which individuals must conform if they want to maintain a member in the group and to let the group function (Baumeister & Exline, 1999).
Therefore, self-control can be seen as the capacity that enables people to favor socially desirable responses over antisocial selfish responses. The importance of self-control for moral, pro-social
behavior can be supported by evidence that low self-control may be the single most important factor in producing criminal, antisocial behavior (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990). Hence, Mead et al. (2009) state that the opportunity to cheat, or to remain honest, presents a motivational conflict between taking short-term selfish gain and acting in ways that presumably bring long-term rewards that include social acceptance. Resolving this motivational conflict may therefore be a core function of the self-control.
The self-control resources were manipulated in two experiments by having some participants engage in a first task that required overriding of responses. Then, the participants were given a second unrelated task with a monetary incentive and an opportunity to increase this incentive by claiming more correct answers than they actually had. Mead et al. (2009) found that the depleted participants claimed more correct answers for monetary gain to a greater extent and they were more likely to expose themselves to the temptation to cheat, than done so by the non-depleted participants. As such, these results indicate that dishonesty increases when people’s capacity to exert self-control is undermined by their depleted ego.
Baumeister and Vohs (2007) conclude as well that much of the self-control resource is used for the purpose of restraining selfish motivations in order to serve the goal of being accepted by others (cf. Mead et al., 2009). Acting selfish is natural: our brains and psychological traits, after all, evolved to enable us to survive and reproduce successfully. According to Darwin’s evolution theory, animals that failed to do the best for themselves were most likely replaced by rivals who did. Culture, meanwhile, is a group system, and sometimes what is best for the group does not mean it is best for the individual. When taking examples out our everyday lives: waiting one’s turn, respecting the properties of others and paying taxes are examples of behaviors that are beneficial for the group but that come at cost to the individual. None of these behaviors comes naturally. It might even be natural to have impulses to do the opposite. Therefore, self-control is helpful and perhaps vital for culture, and thus social acceptance, to succeed (Baumeister & Vohs, 2007). Thus, when people’s capacity to exert self-control is undermined by their depleted ego, this means that they no longer can suppress their natural selfish impulses.
Baumeister and Vohs (2007) and Mead et al. (2009) acknowledge the purpose of the self-control resource for restraining selfish motivations in order to serve the goal of being accepted by others.
This means when people’s capacity to exert self-control is undermined by their depleted ego, they can no longer suppress their natural selfish impulses and they behave unethically accordingly. When people can no longer suppress their selfish impulses due to their depleted ego, people become more self-interested. As such, when these people are involved themselves, they could disapprove the advertising more, as it affects themselves, than when they are not depleted of their ego. Moreover, if this reasoning is true, it should not matter if people are depleted of their ego or not when someone else is involved. The main difference is that when people are depleted of their ego, they become more self-interested. However, as the advertising does not affect the person but someone else, self-interest no longer plays a role. Hence, the self- interested explanation.
Yet, another stream of research would suggest we would find another pattern as explanation between the relationship of ego depletion and recognizing deception. Gino et al. (2011) demonstrated that individuals who are depleted of their self-control resources are more likely to behave dishonestly. Across four experimental studies, individuals depleted of self-control resources were more likely to impulsively cheat than individuals whose self-control resources were intact. The results of Gino et al. (2011) also show that resisting unethical behavior both requires and depletes the self-control resources.
Moreover, they found that the above relationship between ego depletion and unethical behavior was mediated by the impaired ability to recognize moral issues, i.e. impaired moral awareness.
Ego depletion reduced people’s moral awareness when faced with the opportunity to cheat, which, in turn, resulted in the heightened cheating. Ego depletion increases cheating as it draws on the self-control resources necessary to identify an act as immoral or unethical. Both recognizing ethical issues in a decision and reasoning through moral dilemmas require cognitive resources. Given that moral awareness relies on the very same cognitive resources that involve self-control resource depletion, it reduces people’s ability to recognize and reason through a moral issue. As a consequence, people’s moral decision-making script will not be activated.
When moral awareness is impaired, ethics-related constructs are less likely to be activated and available in their minds and, as a result, people are more likely to behave unethically.
Gino et al. (2011) acknowledge the role of moral awareness as the underlying mechanism in the relationship between ego depletion and unethical behavior. When ego depletion occurs, people’s moral awareness reduces and thus ethics-related constructs are less likely to be activated and available in their minds. As a result, people are more likely to behave unethically. As such, people could approve the advertising more, as they recognize it differently or even not at all, than people who are not depleted of their ego, regardless of ‘who’ is involved. Hence, the moral awareness explanation.
To further study the relationship between ego depletion and unethical behavior, we also conduct an exploratory study on the contagion effect of recognizing deception on future unethical behavior. Gino, Ayal and Ariely (2009) examined the mechanisms under which exposure to the unethical behavior of another person increases individuals’ dishonesty. According to the social- norms mechanism, observing the unethicality of another person simply changes one’s understanding of the social norms related to dishonesty (Cialdini & Trost, 1998). Gino et al.
(2009) found support for the social-norms mechanism as observing an in-group peer engaging in unethical behavior increased participants’ likelihood of acting unethically themselves. Therefore, dishonest behavior can be contagious. As such, this study also focuses on whether recognizing deception, an unethical practice, will contaminate individuals’ ethical behavior.
Current Research
The above researchers investigated ego depletion in relationship to unethical behavior carried out by the participants themselves. In this paper, the focus lies on recognizing unethical behavior, namely deception. This paper thus advances our understanding of the role of ego depletion in explaining unethical behavior.
Moreover, the above researchers provide different explanations for the relationship between ego depletion and unethical behavior. This paper acknowledges both the explanations by introducing
the concept of ‘involvement’. Both explanations could help explain why ego depletion could lead to recognizing misleading advertising differently or even not at all, and thereby (dis)approving the advertising, depending on ‘who’ is involved.
As such, this paper investigates not only the relationship between ego depletion and recognizing deception, but also the potential underlying mechanism. If the self-interested explanation is the underlying mechanism, it is expected to find when people are depleted of their ego and they are involved themselves, this might lead to disapproving the advertising more than when they are not depleted of their ego. Moreover, if this reasoning is true, it should not matter if people are depleted of their ego or not when someone else is involved. If the moral awareness explanation is the underlying mechanism, it is expected to find when people are depleted of their ego, this might lead to approving the advertising more than when they are not depleted of their ego, regardless of who’s involved. An overview of the hypotheses can be illustrated in figure 1 and figure 2.
Figure 1. The self-interested explanation Approving advertising
Self-involved Someone else involved
Ego depletion No ego depletion
Figure 2. The moral awareness explanation Approving advertising
Self-involved Someone else involved
Ego depletion No ego depletion
2. METHOD Participants and Design
The study started with 147 participants. In total, 36 participants were excluded from the study as these participants did not complete all three studies. Moreover, 15 participants were excluded as well from the study as these participants did either not perform the writing task or did not perform the writing task in the ego depletion condition correctly (either by ignoring the instruction of writing without using the letters ‘A’ and ‘N’ or by indicating dots on the places of the letters ‘A’ and ‘N)’. Based on the funneled debriefing, one participant was left out.
A total of 95 people, mainly college students from the University of Groningen (47 male; mean age 22.94 years, SD = 8.975), participated in the study for required study research points (two study research points for completing the study) or the chance to win money. The students were randomly assigned to one of the two conditions of the 2 (depletion: yes vs. no) X 2 (involvement:
self-involved vs. someone else) between subjects design. The study included three parts: a writing task (used to manipulate ego depletion), a scenario reading task (used to manipulate involvement) including measurement of the DV’s, and a part involving the participants’ future behavior. The three parts were preceded by multiple questions regarding the participants’
demographics, the instructional manipulation check for detecting participants who are not following instructions (Oppenheimer, Meyvis & Davidenko, 2009) and their general attitude towards advertising in order to measure skepticism towards advertising (Obermiller &
Spangenberg, 1998).
Procedure
Participants were told they would engage in three unrelated studies during the online questionnaire. The participants received the instructions for each study just before engaging in it.
Ego depletion manipulation. The ego depletion manipulation task was derived from the study of Schmeichel (2007), which is an adjusted version of the frequently used depletion manipulation: the e-task. Schmeichel’s (2007) writing task consists of varying the degree to
which participants’ have to inhibit their dominant writing tendencies in order to complete an essay correctly. Participants were asked to write at least seven sentences about a journey they recently made. Participants in the no-ego depletion condition were instructed to write about a journey they recently made without using the letters ‘X’ and ‘Z’. In contrast, participants in the ego depletion condition were instructed to write without using the letters ‘A’ and ‘N’.
To check the ego depletion manipulation, participants were asked questions regarding their current mood and feelings. These questions were either ego depletion related (e.g. not tired-tired;
not challenged-challenged; passive-active) or not ego depletion related (e.g. not proud-proud;
unhappy-happy; no joy-joy) in order to not arouse skepticism among the participants (cf.
Schmeichel, 2007). The ego depletion related questions were combined in an overall ego depletion manipulation check scale (α = 0.575) ranging from 1 to 7 with higher scores indicating a stronger ego depletion1.
Involvement manipulation. Ostensibly as a separate study (called ‘The Scenario Reading Task’), participants were then asked to read a scenario and answer a few questions related to the scenario. The scenario was derived from the Dutch Advertising Code Committee’s website that recognized the situation as being misleading to the average consumer (2009). The scenario was adapted in order to prevent any recognition among the participants. Involvement was manipulated in the scenario by either the participant or a fictional personage (Johan or Emma – dependent on the gender of the participant) being the main character in the scenario.
After reading the scenario, participants were asked to answer questions related to the scenario.
First, three sets of questions related to the way of advertising were asked. Attitude towards the way of advertising was measured by using three seven-point semantic differentials derived from the study of Muehling (1987): bad-good, negative-positive and unfavorable-favorable. These questions were combined in an overall attitude towards the way of advertising scale (α = 0.814) ranging from 1 to 7 with higher scores indicating a more negative attitude towards the way of advertising, indicating deception. The advertising believability towards the way of advertising
1We also calculated a depletion manipulation check scale based on all but one item (i.e. not challenged-challenged), leading to α
= 0.678. No different results on the ego depletion manipulation check were found.
among the participants was measured by using the Advertising Perceived Believability Scale of Beltramini (1982). Advertising believability is viewed as the extent to which an ad is capable of evoking sufficient confidence in its trustfulness to render it acceptable to consumers (Beltramini, 1982). The believability scale consists of ten semantic differentials each operationalized using a seven-place scale response format. In this study the believability scale was adapted by leaving the semantic differential untrustworthy-trustworthy out. The other semantic differentials were more focused on the situation of the advertising, while the semantic differential untrustworthy- trustworthy was more focused towards the company. Therefore, this semantic differential was used to measure believability towards the company (which will be discussed later). Moreover, a few semantic differentials were added which did seem relevant to this study (e.g. not misleading- misleading, unethical-ethical and inappropriate-appropriate). These questions were combined in an overall advertising perceived believability scale (α = 0.878) ranging from 1 to 7 with higher scores indicating a weaker advertising perceived believability, indicating deception. The last set of questions directly asked the participants about their approval of the way of advertising on a seven-point scale. These questions were combined in an overall approval of the way of advertising scale (α = 0.909) ranging from 1 to 7 with higher scores indicating a lower approval of the way of advertising.
Secondly, five sets of questions related to the company in the scenario were asked. Believability towards the company was measured by using three seven-point semantic differentials derived from the study of Muehling (1987): unbelievable-believable, untrustworthy-trustworthy (also derived from the study of Beltramini (1982) as discussed before) and unreliable-reliable. These questions were combined in an overall believability towards the company scale (α = 0.796) ranging from 1 to 7 with higher scores indicating a weaker believability towards the company, indicating deception. Corporate credibility was measured using the Perceived Corporate Credibility Scale of Newell & Goldsmith (1997). According to Newell & Goldsmith (1997), corporate credibility consists of trustworthiness and expertise. However, in this study expertise is not manipulated and it is not expected to find differences towards the expertise of the company among the participants. Therefore, only the four statements concerning trustworthiness were used on a seven-point scale in order to measure corporate credibility. Three out of four statements were combined in an overall corporate credibility scale (α = 0.828) ranging from 1 to
7 with higher scores indicating a lower corporate credibility, indicating deception. Purchase intentions towards the company were measured using a seven-point semantic differential derived from the study of Spears & Singh (2004). Finally, word-of-mouth intentions were measured using two questions on a seven-point scale; word-of-mouth behavior was measured using seven seven-point statements, both derived from the study of Brown, Barry, Dacin and Gunst (2005).
Both the word-of-mouth intentions questions as the word-of-mouth behavior questions were combined in an overall scale, respectively word-of-mouth intentions scale (α = 0.937) and word- of-mouth behavior scale (α = 0.888), ranging from 1 to 7 with higher scores indicating respectively weaker word-of-mouth intentions and weaker word-of-mouth behavior, indicating deception.
Unrelated unethical behavior. In the last part (called ‘Future Behavior’), we wanted to investigate whether recognizing deception would lead to more unrelated unethical behavior. In order not to arouse skepticism among the participants, the aim of this part of the study was introduced as getting a better picture of the average student by introducing different kinds of behavior to see if that is something the participants would consider doing. Moreover, both unrelated unethical behavior (e.g. cheating at an exam) and unrelated neutral behavior (e.g.
trying a new food recipe) on a seven-point scale were measured in order to not arouse skepticism among participants. The unethical behavior related questions were combined in an overall unethical behavior scale (α = 0.574) ranging from 1 to 7 with higher scores indicating more unethical behavior.
Funneled debriefing. Finally, we used a funneled debriefing to gather information about what participants thought the purpose of the study was and if any aspect of the study seemed strange or suspicious. To gauge suspicion, participants were asked if they thought the different tasks were interrelated and if any of the tasks affect what they did on any other task (Chartrand &
Bargh, 1996). One participant, who is also working as a student on a similar subject in our marketing department, indicated that the study was about the influence of concentration on assessing unethical behavior. Moreover, she indicated that the ethical circumstance in the second study most likely affected your own ethical behavior in the third study. As such, this participant was left out. At the end, participants were debriefed and thanked.
3. RESULTS Manipulation Check
To check whether our manipulation of ego depletion was successful, we performed an independent samples t-test on the ego depletion related moods and feelings. Results showed that participants in the ego depletion condition were not feeling more depleted (M = 3.86, SD = 0.82), than did participants in the no-ego depletion condition (M = 3.57, SD = 0.91, t(92) = -1.56, p = 0.12). This pattern is not consistent with the view that inhibiting the use of common letters while writing requires effortful executive control.
In the discussion, we will elaborate more on both the cause of the insignificance of the ego depletion manipulation, as well as the solutions. We will continue describing the results of this dataset. That is, the underlying theory could still be visible, and it might provide insights for future directions.
Recognizing Deception and Approving Advertising
The primary hypothesis was that ego depletion would reduce recognized deception, thereby (dis)approving the advertising, depending on who was involved. This hypothesis was not confirmed. Multiple 2 (ego depletion: yes vs. no) X 2 (involvement: self-involved vs. someone else) factorial ANOVA’s on the deception indicators (e.g. attitude towards the way of advertising, believability towards the company, corporate credibility) and the approval of the way of advertising indicator revealed insignificant main effects and interaction effects. There was one exception. A 2 (ego depletion: yes vs. no) X 2 (involvement: self-involved vs. someone else) factorial ANOVA on advertising perceived believability did reveal a marginally significant main effect of involvement (F(1.90) = 3.19, p = 0.08). If the participants themselves were involved, they recognized the advertising as more deceptive (M = 5.50, SD = .90) than when someone else was involved (M = 5.06, SD = 1.05).
Unrelated Unethical Behavior
A 2 (ego depletion: yes vs. no) X 2 (involvement: self-involved vs. someone else) factorial ANOVA on unrelated unethical behavior revealed an insignificant main effect of ego depletion and an insignificant interaction effect. However, it did reveal a marginally significant main effect of involvement (F(1.91) = 3.32, p = 0.07). If someone else was involved, participants showed more unrelated unethical behavior (M = 2.81, SD = 0.87) than when the participants themselves were involved (M = 2.56, SD = 0.69).
4. DISCUSSION
The present research studied the relationship between ego depletion and recognizing deception, and the potential underlying mechanism by introducing the concept of involvement. Two competing hypotheses were tested: the self-interested explanation and the moral awareness explanation. If the self-interested hypothesis is true, it was expected to find that ego depletion results in disapproving the advertising more when people are involved themselves. When someone else is involved, ego depletion doesn’t make a difference. If the moral awareness hypothesis is true, it was expected to find that ego depletion results in approving the advertising more, regardless of who’s involved. Overall, no significant main effects and interaction effects were found except for one: a marginally significant main effect of involvement was found for advertising perceived believability.
These results are too a large extent the result of the ego depletion manipulation not being successful, even though the ego depletion manipulation is used before and has shown its significance in this field of research (see also Moller, et al., 2006; Fischer, et al., 2007;
Schmeichel, 2007; Wan & Sternthal, 2008; Wan et al, 2010). A possible cause of the insignificance of the ego depletion manipulation could be the online setting. A lot of participants quitted during the writing task in the ego depletion condition. Participants who did continue in the ego depletion condition self-selected themselves to continue. This could indicate that they may have a stronger executive control which means it requires less effort for them to complete the writing task, hence the insignificant ego depletion manipulation. Lab setting makes that the participants don’t quit as much in the ego depletion condition. Moreover, it is more difficult to control when the participants will complete the study, and therefore how much of their executive control is already depleted during the day, in an online setting. If someone still desires to continue the study in an online setting, a possible solution could be to record the time participants take to complete the writing task. The time distribution could provide an estimation of the strength of the executive control of the participants.
It is no surprise that the results are insignificant due to the insignificance of the ego depletion manipulation. However the results do show an indication of the right directions we would expect,
which might indicate a justification of our theory. We did find a marginally significant main effect of involvement on advertising perceived believability. If the participants themselves were involved, they recognized the advertising as more deceptive than when someone else was involved. This finding might indicate that the self-interested explanation is true, which acknowledges the purpose of the self-control resource for restraining selfish motivations in order to serve the goal of being accepted by others. When people can no longer suppress their selfish impulses due to their depleted ego, people become more self-interested (Baumeister & Vohs, 2007; Mead et al., 2009). As such, when these people are involved themselves, they recognize the advertising as more deceptive, as it affects themselves, than when they are not depleted of their ego or when someone else is involved, hence our finding. However, no interaction effects between ego depletion and involvement were found. Therefore, this finding should be interpreted with caution and no actual conclusions can be made about the self-interested explanation being the underlying mechanism of the relationship between ego depletion and recognizing deception.
However, we should note that the self-interested explanation is based on a motivational conflict between taking short-term selfish gain and acting in ways that presumably bring long-term rewards that include social acceptance (Mead et al., 2009). For instance the experiment conducted by Mead et al. (2009) clearly highlights the motivational conflict between short-term selfish gain (e.g. the opportunity to increase a monetary incentive by claiming more correct answers) and long-term social acceptance by remaining honest. Recognizing deception does not cause any motivational conflict between short-term selfish gain and long-term social acceptance.
It is therefore recommended for future research to use a situation that incorporates this motivational conflict.
For exploratory reasons, this study also focused on whether deception, an unethical practice, could contaminate individuals’ ethical behavior. A marginally significant main effect of involvement was found. If someone else was involved, participants showed more unrelated unethical behavior than when the participants themselves were involved. A possible explanation for this finding could be that when the participants themselves were involved, they experienced it as being a victim of unethical practice, which withdrew them to engage in any further unethical behavior. However, when someone else was involved, it probably had less impact on the
participant. Moreover, it could be that the participants felt licensed to do the same when someone else acted on the unethical practice, which corresponds to social-norms mechanism. According to the social-norms mechanism, observing the unethicality of another person simply changes one’s understanding of the social norms related to dishonesty (Cialdini & Trost, 1998). Gino et al.
(2009) found support for the social-norms mechanism as observing an in-group peer engaging in unethical behavior increased participants’ likelihood of acting unethically themselves. As such, our finding might contribute to this field of research. Of course, we must await further research to investigate the unethical behavior contagion more in relationship with ego depletion.
Further limitations and future directions
Besides the advice to do this study in a lab setting, some further future directions can be given. In the current work, no pilot was done to the perception of the names used in the scenario in terms of affection or bonding. As such, no conclusions can be made whether the names ‘Johan’ and
‘Emma’ are neutral names and therefore did not have any effects on the results. Therefore, it is recommended for future research to do a pilot to the perception of the names in order to cancel any further effects out.
Moreover, as the scenario included a student-related experience (a student night out), it could be that participants who are no students recognized the deception differently or even not at all due to the inexperience with the situation. Therefore, it is recommended for future research either to use the scenario only to students, or to adapt the scenario to include other participants. Even though our sample consisted of a few participants who are no students, it might not be representative enough to apply our findings outside the student population as the majority of our sample consisted of students.
Another limitation of our findings pertains to the fact that in our study, participants had to self- report their future unethical behavior. As a consequence, participants could have answered questions related to their future unethical behavior in favor of what is generally accepted in human society, resulting in knowingly human errors. If someone wishes to overcome these knowingly human errors, experiments should be used in order to measure real, overt behavior.
In addition, the participants who are no students did fill in the future unethical behavior questions which are for the most part student-related behaviors (e.g. cheat on an exam, work together on an individual assignment). Perhaps that is why the future unethical behavior questions scored relatively low on the reliability score. Moreover, as our results have shown, observing an in- group peer engaging in unethical behavior increases participants’ likelihood of acting unethically themselves. However, observing an out-group peer engaging in unethical behavior reduces participants’ likelihood of acting unethically themselves (Gino et al., 2009). As the participants who are no students observed a student-related situation, they observed an out-group peer engaging in unethical behavior. As a result, this could have partly cancelled out the strength of the unethical behavior contagion.
In sum, this research investigated ego depletion in relationship to recognizing deception.
Although no significant results were found, the underlying theory is still visible. We await further research to investigate the relationship between ego depletion and recognizing deception, and the potential underlying mechanism.
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