Thursday, August 30, 2012

You're less likely to lie if you sign your name before filling out forms

You're less likely to lie if you sign your name before filling out forms:
What's the purpose of signing a form? On the simplest level, a signature is simply a way to make someone legally responsible for the content of the form. But in addition to the legal aspect, the signature is an appeal to personal integrity, forcing people to consider whether they're comfortable attaching their identity to something that may not be completely true.
Based on some figures in a new PNAS paper, the signatures on most forms are miserable failures, at least from the latter perspective. The IRS estimates that it misses out on about $175 billion because people misrepresent their income or deductions. And the insurance industry calculates that it loses about $80 billion annually due to fraudulent claims. But the same paper suggests a fix that is as simple as tweaking the form. Forcing people to sign before they complete the form greatly increases their honesty.
It shouldn't be a surprise that signing at the end of a form does not promote accurate reporting, given what we know about human psychology. "Immediately after lying," the paper's authors write, "individuals quickly engage in various mental justifications, reinterpretations, and other 'tricks' such as suppressing thoughts about their moral standards that allow them to maintain a positive self-image despite having lied." By the time they get to the actual request for a signature, they've already made their peace with lying: "When signing comes after reporting, the morality train has already left the station."
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