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The Truth About Tattoos
Journal article

The Truth About Tattoos

Abstract

Despite their ubiquity, tattoos continue to be associated with dishonesty. Yet, scarce behavioral evidence exists. We test whether the tattooed and non-tattooed differ in their dishonest reporting in two consecutive incentivized experiments. First, subjects toss a coin privately five times and receive payment for each heads reported. After, subjects perform five additional coin tosses with the payment for each heads reported increased tenfold. We find few differences in the reporting behavior between the tattooed and non-tattooed in the number of heads reported in either reporting task or the difference between the two. Strategic dishonesty is limited to a small minority of subjects and to only one additional reported heads in the high-stakes tosses.

Authors

Ruffle BJ; Wilson A

Journal

, , ,

Publisher

Elsevier

Publication Date

January 1, 2018

DOI

10.2139/ssrn.3198397

ISSN

1556-5068
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