Some researchers have revealed that people tend to lie and cheat more in the afternoon as their self-control lowers during the daytime. Researchers who were from Harvard University and University of Utah conducted the study that was published in the Psychological Science.
They conducted various experiments to observe the behavior of people in the morning with instances such as cheating, stealing, lying and other unethical behavior. The previous studies showed that there was an influence by repetitive decision-making and insufficient rest, which is bound to wane self-control. Therefore, the researchers wanted to focus on the study- do the activities performed during the daytime result in dishonest behavior in a person.
The study was performed with a group of undergraduate students and adults living in the US. The researchers conducted four experiments for the same. The college students were asked to identify the sides that had lots of dots from a dot pattern in a computer. They were offered monetary reward if a particular side had more dots.
In case the right side had more dots, they were paid 10 times higher. The study showed that the students who took part in the study in the morning from 8 am to noon cheated less times when compared with other group that took part in the study from noon to 6 pm.
This difference was termed by the researchers as morning morality effect. Another experiment asked the students to spell the words -“moral” and “ethical”. The students of the morning batch spelled it correctly whereas the ones in the afternoon spelled it as “coral” and “effects”. This was also evident of morning morality effect according to researchers. Another experiment showed that the participants in the afternoon group made many false claims that they had solved a problem online than the morning group.
The researchers felt that those honest people in the research were not influenced by any negative consequences that are related to morning morality effect. Their results revealed that the time of the day that is, afternoon can have significant impact on good people and can also make them act in an immoral way.
The researchers stated that the study and its finding may help businesses to minimize the rate of unethical behavior.
