A Registered Report on Gender Bias in Interpersonal Dishonesty: Are Females and Males Cheated Differently?

This registered report investigates the role of the target’s sex in selfish dishonest behavior. Informed by moral typecasting theory, we hypothesized individuals to be more dishonest toward male than female targets, and this effect will be stronger among male than female decision-makers. A total of 3,166 male and female participants from nine countries were incentivized to lie and increase their payoffs at the cost of another same-sex, opposite-sex, or unmentioned-sex participant with zero risks of detection, punishment, or reputational consequences. We did not find statistically significant evidence of female targets being cheated less than male targets overall. However, we found a significant interaction between the target and decision-maker, albeit a different nature than predicted. Female decision-makers cheated female (vs. male) targets 53.6% less, while male decision-makers cheated male and female targets similarly. Linking target characteristics and moral decision-making, our research suggests that female ingroup favoritism may underlie gender bias in interpersonal dishonest behavior.