The effect of losing and winning on cheating and effort in repeated competitions

Necker S, Paetzel F (2023)


Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2023

Journal

Book Volume: 98

Article Number: 102655

DOI: 10.1016/j.joep.2023.102655

Abstract

Competitive rewards are often assigned on a regular basis, e.g., in annual salary negotiations or employee-of-the-month schemes. The repetition of competitions can imply that opponents are matched based on earlier outcomes. Using a real-effort experiment, we examine how cheating and effort evolve in two rounds of competitions in which subjects compete with different types of opponents in the second round (random/based on the first-round outcome). We find that (i) losing causes competitors to increase cheating in the second round while winning implies a tendency to reduce cheating. A similar effect is found with regard to effort, as losers increase effort to a larger extent than winners. (ii) Competitor matching does not significantly affect behavior.

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APA:

Necker, S., & Paetzel, F. (2023). The effect of losing and winning on cheating and effort in repeated competitions. Journal of Economic Psychology, 98. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joep.2023.102655

MLA:

Necker, Sarah, and Fabian Paetzel. "The effect of losing and winning on cheating and effort in repeated competitions." Journal of Economic Psychology 98 (2023).

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