Little is known about the relationship between attention allocation and dishonesty. The goal of the present work was to address this issue using the eyetracking methodology. We developed a novel task in which participants could honestly report seeing a particular card and lose money, or they could falsely report not seeing the card and not lose money. When participants cheated, they allocated less attention (i.e., shorter fixation durations and fewer fixations) to the card than when they behaved honestly. Our results suggest that when dishonesty pays, shifting attention away from undesirable information can serve as a self-deception strategy that allows individuals to serve their self-interests while maintaining a positive self-concept.
Keywords: Attention; Behavioral ethics; Eyetracking; Unethical behavior.