People from some countries are more honest than others, but all are dishonest to some degree, research has shown.
The study, published by an academic from the University of East Anglia, found that people’s honesty varied significantly, and 1,500 participants from 15 countries were tested for dishonest behaviour. Participants were asked to flip a coin and say what the outcome was in an online survey, with a monetary incentive to say that it landed on heads. Any set of results higher than 50 per cent for a country was assumed to hold an element of dishonesty.
Participants were then asked to complete a music quiz with very difficult answers, and asked not to search online for answers.
Dr David Hugh-Jones found evidence for dishonesty in all the countries surveyed.The four least honest countries in the coin flip test were China, Japan, South Korea and India, but Asian countries were not significantly more dishonest in the quiz, where Japan had the lowest level of dishonesty.
