Do truth-telling oaths improve honesty in crowd-working?

This study explores whether an oath to honesty can reduce both shirking and lying among crowd-sourced internet workers. Using a classic coin-flip experiment, we first confirm that substantial majority of Mechanical Turk workers shirk lie when reporting the number heads flipped. We then demonstrate be reduced by asking each worker swear voluntarily on his or her honor tell truth in subsequent economic decisions. Even this online, purely anonymous environment, significantly percent subjects telling “big” lies (by roughly 27%), but did not affect shirking. also explore truth-telling used as screening device if implemented after decisions have been made. Conditional flipping response, MTurk shirkers who lied were less likely agree ex-post oath. Our results suggest oaths may help elicit more truthful behavior, even online environments.