Honesty in the morning, dishonest in the evening

Why people are more honest in the morning than in the evening

11/01/2013

Honesty and morality are dependent on the time of day. This was the result of a study by two US researchers. For their research students were asked four tasks for which they each received more money if they cheated on it. As it turned out, the subjects had much more moral concerns in the morning than in the evening. Thus, in the course of the day in addition to fatigue in terms of concentration and performance seems to show a loss of moral feeling.

Tomorrow, honesty wins more often over cheating than in the afternoon
Most students are happy if their exam dates are not held early in the morning. Because the examiners are tired in the afternoon and therefore less critical and generally milder tuned. This phenomenon was recently investigated by the US scientists Maryam Kouchaki from Harvard University and Isaac Smith from the University of Utah. „Are people more moral in the morning than in the afternoon??“, the researchers wondered. As part of their study, the psychologists found that this issue was clearly related „Yes“ to answer, because people are more honest in the morning than in the afternoon.

The so-called „Morning Morality Effect“ The researchers got on the track by conducting four experiments with students. The subjects each had the opportunity to earn the more money the more they cheated on it. Half of the subjects were tested tomorrow between eight and twelve o'clock, the other half carried out the experiments in the time of 15 and 18 o'clock. The result was clear: the students doing the afternoon tasks cheated more often than the group that worked that morning.

„This „Morning Morality Effect“ was brought about by the decline of moral awareness and self-control in the afternoon“, explain the researchers in the journal „Psychological Science“.

The experiments also included a word completion test in which the subjects included word fragments „The researchers were also able to find out from this that the individual subjects of the study were concerned with morality, because the more frequently words such as morality, ethics and honesty were formed, the greater are the moral concerns This experiment confirmed the results of the other experiments: In the morning, students were much more likely to use words from the moral field than in the afternoon.

Over the course of the day, self-discipline and morality are dwindling
The psychologists explain themselves „Morning Morality Effect“ by the disappearance of self-discipline during the day. Self-restraint is not inexhaustible and is less with each hour. Various studies have shown that. At the same time, the probability of dishonest behavior increases. "The later it gets, the harder it will be to adhere to one's own moral and moral concepts."

As the researchers continue to write „The effect of the time of day on unethical behavior was more pronounced in people with less propensity to turn off morale. These findings mark a simple but omnipresent factor (i.e., the time of day) that has a significant impact on moral behavior“. (Ag)