Are you honest or dishonest? Scientists know!

By William Atkins
Monday, 27 July 2009 18:37

Science - Biology

During these activities, the Harvard researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans to show brain (neural) activity in the areas of the brain that control decision making and behavioral control.

The researchers found that some subjects earned money dishonestly by saying afterwards that they accurately predicted the outcome of the coin toss when they really did not successfully predict its outcome.

Their brain activity was different when they had the chance to cheat and, in fact, did cheat.

The researchers knew this to be the case because “Many subjects behaved dishonestly, as indicated by improbable levels of ‘accuracy’.”

A toss of the coin has a 50% chance of being heads and a 50% chance of being tails each time. Anything deviating from this percentage is very unlikely, based on mathematical statistics.

Honest subjects did not show any differences in their brain activity, whether they predicted the outcome before or after the toss of the coin.

In other words, these people did not make a conscious decision whether to cheat or not. They automatically told the truth in all cases.

The two Harvard University scientists concluded that: “Our findings support the Grace hypothesis. Individuals who behaved honestly exhibited no additional control-related activity (or other kind of activity) when choosing to behave honestly, as compared with a control condition in which there was no opportunity for dishonest gain.”

And, “In contrast, individuals who behaved dishonestly exhibited increased activity in control-related regions of prefrontal cortex, both when choosing to behave dishonestly and on occasions when they refrained from dishonesty. Levels of activity in these regions correlated with the frequency of dishonesty in individuals.”