When humans decide to play by the rules or to violate them is an age-old question. In this manuscript, Zickfeld et al. (2025) address this question through a lens of utility (Becker, 1968): When norm violations are punished (in this case, when a third party imposes monetary fines), breaking the rules is no longer worth it.

Zickfeld et al. (2025) study incentivized (non-)compliance in a tax evasion game. Based on the procedure of Fochmann et al. (2021), participants are allocated to triads. Each triad receives a taxable income and must disclose this income to be taxed appropriately, across several rounds. However, every triad member has an incentive to underreport the triad income, to pay lower taxes and receive an individual bonus. But if they are caught, they receive no payoff for this round. 

Specifically, Zickfeld et al. (2025) set out to compare the effects of group vs. individual payoffs schemes, group vs. individual punishments, and different punishment probabilities (0% vs. 30%) in a well-powered online experiment. By systematically addressing these factors, the manuscript contributes to testing boundary conditions of the economic model of rule-breaking. In addition, considering measures of moral anger, guilt, stress, risk aversion and honesty-humility adds a psychological flavor to the investigation. 

This Stage 1 manuscript was evaluated by three expert reviewers, across two rounds of revisions. Based on detailed responses to the reviewers’ comments and edits to the Stage 1 report, the recommender judged that the manuscript met the Stage 1 criteria and therefore awarded in-principle acceptance (IPA).

 

Level of bias control achieved: Level 6. No part of the data or evidence that will be used to answer the research question yet exists and no part will be generated until after IPA.

 

List of eligible PCI RR-friendly journals:
 

 

1. Becker, G. S. (1968). Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach. Journal of Political Economy, 76, 169–217. https://doi.org/10.1086/259394

2. Fochmann, M., Fochmann, N., Kocher, M. G., & Müller, N. (2021). Dishonesty and risk-taking: Compliance decisions of individuals and groups. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 185, 250-286. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2021.02.018

 

3. Zickfeld, J., Tønnesen, M. T., Elbaek, C. T., Oelrich, S., Cardarelli, T., Ścigała, K. A., Pfattheicher, S., & Mitkidis, P. (2025). The Effect of Individual and Group Punishment on Individual and Group-Based Dishonesty. In principle acceptance of Version 4 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/eqw95