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  • A total of 133 Spanish undergraduate students (64% male; Mage = 19, SD = 1.22) participated in the study for approximately 3€. The study took less than 30 minutes and was conducted with paper and pencil. The experimental design was a 3x2 factorial study. Participants were randomly assigned to one of six conditions generated by crossing the level of Supervision [High Supervision (HS), Low Supervision (LS) and No Supervision (NS)] with the Presence of Others during the execution of the task: Isolated (I: N = 20, 20, 20) or accompanied by Familiar-Peers (FP: N = 24, 26, 23). Both independent variables were between subjects. Based on Pascual-Ezama et al. [10] we asked participants to complete a notebook of a popular word search “mind game” puzzles taken from a local newspaper. Subjects were initially given the notebook and told that they would be paid 0.55€ for finding 10 different words in each word search matrix. Having completed the first page, they were then asked whether they would be willing to complete a second page for 0.50€ (5¢ less). The process continued, with wages declining by 5¢ per sheet, until the subject decided to stop working. Participants had to complete at least 4 pages and there was no time limit. In I, each subject participated in the experiment alone, without the presence of other subjects in the lab. In FP, participants did the task at the same time, in the same room, but individually. In both I and FP situations, subjects were unaware of the other conditions. For the HS condition, participants had to identify themselves by writing their names in the notebook and give it back to the researcher directly. In the LS condition, participants had to deposit their notebooks in a big stack of similar notebooks. No written identification was demanded. At the end of the session, for both conditions, participants would then report their result to receive the reward. To compare the real number of pages completed in the LS condition with those reported we manipulated the number of sheets of the notebooks in the stack: all the notebooks in the stack had 11 pages while participants’ notebooks had 12 pages. So, whenever a participant finished, the researcher could know which notebook was his or hers. To maintain confidentiality, researchers assigned a number to the participant and noted it on their notebook. Finally, in the NS condition, participants did not have to give the notebook to the researcher (they could shred it or take it away with them). NS participants then only had to report their result to the researcher to receive their reward. Hence, in the NS condition, we had no information about the real number of pages completed; only the number of pages declared. The experimental design allowed participants in the NS condition to be 100% confident they would not be caught cheating; participants in the LS condition, however, could be confident but not 100% sure. In all cases, we registered the number of pages reported (‘units declared’), the number of pages actually completed (only for HS and LS), and the time spent for each participant to complete the entire task. In order to have a measure of cheating, we calculated the number of units declared minus the number of units completed (cheating = units declared—units actually completed) for HS and LS conditions (as information for units completed in the NS condition was not available). This analysis allows us to determine the level of cheating in the HS and LS conditions. The bigger the difference is between the measures, the bigger the cheating is in a given condition. In NS, we used time as a proxy to measure cheating by comparing time spent under HS and LS conditions (see [10]). Finally, participants were also offered a social incentive (in this and all the following experiments). Experiments were run during a regular semester undergraduate course as part of laboratory classes, and participants were told that the most efficient participants would be announced in class. The students voluntarily participated in the experiment, and the results did not affect their grade at the end of the semester. Therefore, after the experiment was completed, we explained it, showed the results, and (as promised), announced who had the best performance in each experiment. Taking into account that participants had to finish a minimum of 4 units, instructions defined efficiency as minutes spent by units declared, independently of the final number of units declared. That means that one participant who reported 4 units in 12 minutes (3 minutes per unit) was considered as more efficient than another participant who reported 10 units in 40 minutes (4 minutes per unit). A total of 71 individuals (63% male; Mage = 20, SD = 1.6) participated in the study for approximately 3€. All participants were undergraduate students at a university in Madrid, Spain. The study took less than 30 minutes and was conducted with paper and pencil. Experiment 2 was a replication of Experiment 1 only in the Familiar-Peer situation, but using a confederate: the “Lure”. That is, in the present experiment we have only one between-subjects factor, Supervision (HS, LS & NS). The Lure was randomly selected from the group and given instructions to hand in his or her results to the researcher exactly 10 minutes after starting the task. After those ten minutes, the confederate went to the researcher to hand in his or her work. The researcher observed all the units and specified to the confederate that it was correct. The number of units that the confederate finished was unknown to the rest of participants. A total of 64 individuals (59% male; Mage = 20, SD = 1.4) participated in the study for approximately 3€. All participants were undergraduate students at a university in Madrid, Spain. The study took less than 30 minutes and was conducted with paper and pencil. Experiment 3 replicated Experiment 2, but used three confederate Lures (Triple Lure: TL) instead of only one (L). The confederates were randomly selected from the group and instructed to finish the task at exactly 10 minutes (the “lure”) and 11 minutes (two “followers”) after the task began.
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