Good Lamps Are the Best Police: Darkness Increases Dishonesty and Self-Interested Behavior (Zhong, Bohns, Gino)

Vocabulary flashcards capturing the key concepts and terms related to darkness, illusory anonymity, and dishonesty across the three experiments.

Darkness

A condition of reduced lighting that conceals identity and can license dishonest and self-interested behavior via illusory anonymity, even when actual visibility remains sufficient.

Illusory anonymity

A perceived sense of being unseen or unobserved that disinhibits self-interested and unethical actions, not necessarily tied to actual visibility.

Actual anonymity

The objective state in which a person cannot be identified or traced; the studies manipulated darkness without eliminating actual anonymity.

Perceived anonymity

The subjective belief that one is anonymous in a given situation, which can mediate behavior (e.g., darkness leading to more self-interested choices).

Ring of Gyges

A myth from Plato’s Republic about invisibility leading to corruption, illustrating how anonymity can tempt unethical acts.

Egocentrism

A cognitive tendency to view the world from one’s own perspective; adults retain some egocentrism, affecting perspective taking.

Illusion of transparency

The bias that others can read our internal states; related to illusory anonymity in overestimating others’ ability to see us.

Deindividuation

A state of reduced self-awareness and increased conformity to group norms; darkness has been linked to deindividuation, though this work emphasizes illusory anonymity beyond that.

Cheating (in the study)

Reporting higher performance than actual to earn undeserved money; measured by the gap between self-reported and actual performance.

Self-interested behavior

Actions aimed at maximizing one’s own payoff, potentially at others’ expense.

Dictator game

A one-shot economic game where the initiator divides a sum of money between themselves and a recipient who has no influence on the outcome.

Dim room (Experiment 1)

A slightly dimmed room condition that increased cheating compared to a well-lit control room, even with guaranteed anonymity.

Sunglasses condition (Experiment 2/3)

Wearing sunglasses during an online task led to more selfish offers in a dictator game, signaling illusory anonymity.

Perceived anonymity scale (Experiment 3)

A five-item measure assessing how anonymous participants felt during the study (α = .93).

Mediation (indirect effect)

A statistical process where a mediator explains part of the relationship between an independent and a dependent variable; in this study, perceived anonymity mediated darkness’ effect on offers.