Taking shortcuts: Cognitive conflict during motivated rule-breaking

Publication date: Available online 25 June 2018Source: Journal of Economic PsychologyAuthor(s): Roland Pfister, Robert Wirth, Lisa Weller, Anna Foerster, Katharina SchwarzAbstractDeliberate rule violations have typically been addressed from a motivational perspective that asked whether or not agents decide to violate rules based on contextual factors and moral considerations. Here we complement motivational approaches by providing a cognitive perspective on the processes that operate during the act of committing an unsolicited rule violation. Participants were tested in a task that allowed for violating traffic rules by exploiting forbidden shortcuts in a virtual city maze. Results yielded evidence for sustained cognitive conflict that affected performance from right before a violation throughout actually committing the violation. These findings open up a new theoretical perspective on violation behavior that focuses on processes occurring right at the moment a rule violation takes place.

Source: Journal of Economic Psychology - July 10, 2018 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research