![]() ![]() Therefore, the question arises whether, on the neural level, overriding the default to be honest in favor of cheating is identical to overriding the default to be dishonest in favor of honesty. ![]() Although our study demonstrated that activity in the IFG is required when participants override their moral default, our analyses did not reveal whether activity in the IFG for a cheater’s decision to be honest is actually identical to activity in the IFG for an honest person’s decision to cheat. In a commentary on our work, Abe (2020) astutely noted that, while our findings provide insights into the role of cognitive control, they do not reveal the exact nature of control-related activity. We showed that the cognitive control network may orchestrate honesty for people who can be considered cheaters and dishonesty for the more honesty inclined and thus provide potential reconciliation for this long-standing paradox. In order to achieve a subjectively justifiable and desirable balance where one can occasionally profit from cheating but still maintain a positive self-image, people on both sides of the spectrum sometimes need to override their moral default. In contrast, individuals on the other end of the spectrum have an inclination for dishonesty, and their decisions are driven more strongly by rewards. Individuals on one end of the continuum are inclined to be honest, which is associated with more self-referential thinking when given the opportunity to cheat. Our findings suggested that people are distributed along a continuum, from individuals who are generally honest to cheaters. In direct opposition to this, a separate stream of research has accumulated evidence in favor of the Grace hypothesis (for meta-analyses, see Greene and Paxton, 2009 Shalvi et al., 2012 Capraro, 2017 Suchotzki et al., 2017 Verschuere et al., 2018), advocating that cognitive control is required for dishonesty. Research supporting the Will hypothesis ( Mead et al., 2009 Gino et al., 2011 Welsh and Ordóñez, 2014) suggests that cognitive control is needed to be honest. Our results help reconcile the long-standing debate between proponents of the Will hypothesis and the Grace hypothesis. Based on these findings, we argued that cognitive control is not needed to be honest or dishonest per se but that it depends on an individual’s moral default. These findings suggest that honest participants needed cognitive control to overcome their inclination for being honest in order to cheat, whereas cheaters had to exert control to override their greedy tendencies in order to be honest. In a recent study ( Speer et al., 2020), we found that areas associated with cognitive control, particularly the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), helped dishonest participants to be honest, whereas it enabled cheating for those who are generally honest. We found that these choices are differently encoded in the IFG, suggesting that engaging cognitive control to follow the norm (that cheating is wrong) fundamentally differs from applying control to violate this norm. To address this, we applied multivariate pattern analysis to compare neural patterns of non-habitual honesty to non-habitual dishonesty. This speaks to the question as to whether cognitive control mechanisms are domain-general or may be context specific. However, while our findings provided insights into the role of cognitive control in overriding a moral default, they did not reveal whether overriding honest default behavior (non-habitual dishonesty) is the same as overriding dishonest default behavior (non-habitual honesty) at the neural level. These findings suggest that cognitive control is not needed to be honest or dishonest per se but that it depends on an individual’s moral default. In a recent study ( Speer et al., 2020), we proposed a reconciliation of these opposing views by showing that activity in areas associated with cognitive control, particularly the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), helped dishonest participants to be honest, whereas it enabled cheating for honest participants. There is a long-standing debate regarding the cognitive nature of (dis)honesty: Is honesty an automatic response or does it require willpower in the form of cognitive control in order to override an automatic dishonest response. Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands. ![]()
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