Dataset Information

Coercive and legitimate authority impact tax honesty: evidence from behavioral and ERP experiments.

ABSTRACT: Cooperation in social systems such as tax honesty is of central importance in our modern societies. However, we know little about cognitive and neural processes driving decisions to evade or pay taxes. This study focuses on the impact of perceived tax authority and examines the mental chronometry mirrored in ERP data allowing a deeper understanding about why humans cooperate in tax systems. We experimentally manipulated coercive and legitimate authority and studied its impact on cooperation and underlying cognitive (experiment 1, 2) and neuronal (experiment 2) processes. Experiment 1 showed that in a condition of coercive authority, tax payments are lower, decisions are faster and participants report more rational reasoning and enforced compliance, however, less voluntary cooperation than in a condition of legitimate authority. Experiment 2 confirmed most results, but did not find a difference in payments or self-reported rational reasoning. Moreover, legitimate authority led to heightened cognitive control (expressed by increased MFN amplitudes) and disrupted attention processing (expressed by decreased P300 amplitudes) compared to coercive authority. To conclude, the neuronal data surprisingly revealed that legitimate authority may led to higher decision conflict and thus to higher cognitive demands in tax decisions than coercive authority.

SUBMITTER: Gangl K

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5490685 | biostudies-other | 2017 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other

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Coercive and legitimate authority impact tax honesty: evidence from behavioral and ERP experiments.

Gangl Katharina K Pfabigan Daniela M DM Lamm Claus C Kirchler Erich E Hofmann Eva E

Social cognitive and affective neuroscience 20170701 7

Cooperation in social systems such as tax honesty is of central importance in our modern societies. However, we know little about cognitive and neural processes driving decisions to evade or pay taxes. This study focuses on the impact of perceived tax authority and examines the mental chronometry mirrored in ERP data allowing a deeper understanding about why humans cooperate in tax systems. We experimentally manipulated coercive and legitimate authority and studied its impact on cooperation and ...[more]

PMID: 28402477

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Project description:BackgroundRecent cognitive and computational models (e.g. the Interacting Neighbors Model) state that in simple multiplication decade and unit digits of the candidate answers (including the correct result) are represented separately. Thus, these models challenge holistic views of number representation as well as traditional accounts of the classical problem size effect in simple arithmetic (i.e. the finding that large problems are answered slower and less accurate than small problems). Empirical data supporting this view are still scarce.MethodsData of 24 participants who performed a multiplication verification task with Arabic digits (e.g. 8 x 4 = 36 - true or false?) are reported. Behavioral (i.e. RT and errors) and EEG (i.e. ERP) measures were recorded in parallel.ResultsWe provide evidence for neighborhood-consistency effects in the verification of simple multiplication problems (e.g. 8 x 4). Behaviorally, we find that decade-consistent lures, which share their decade digit with the correct result (e.g. 36), are harder to reject than matched inconsistent lures, which differ in both digits from the correct result (e.g. 28). This neighborhood consistency effect in product verification is similar to recent observations in the production of multiplication results. With respect to event-related potentials we find significant differences for consistent compared to inconsistent lures in the N400 (increased negativity) and Late Positive Component (reduced positivity). In this respect consistency effects in our paradigm resemble lexico-semantic effects earlier found in simple arithmetic and in orthographic input processing.ConclusionOur data suggest that neighborhood consistency effects in simple multiplication stem at least partly from central (lexico-semantic') stages of processing. These results are compatible with current models on the representation of simple multiplication facts - in particular with the Interacting Neighbors Model - and with the notion of decomposed representations of two-digit numbers in general.

Project description:Multi-word expressions (MWEs) are fixed, conventional phrases often used by native speakers of a given language (L1). The type of MWEs investigated in this study were collocations. For bilinguals who have intensive contact with the second language (L2), collocational patterns can be transferred from the L2 to the L1 as a result of cross-linguistic influence (CLI). For example, bilingual migrants can accept collocations from their L2 translated to their L1 as correct. In this study, we asked whether such CLI is possible in native speakers living in the L1 environment and whether it depends on their L2 English proficiency. To this end, we created three lists of expressions in Polish: (1) well-formed Polish verb-noun collocations (e.g., ma sens - ∗has sense), (2) collocational calques from English (loan translations), where the English verb was replaced by a Polish translation equivalent (e.g., ∗ robi sens - makes sense), and, as a reference (3) absurd verb-noun expression, where the verb did not collocate with the noun (e.g., ∗ zjada sens - ∗eats sense). We embedded the three types of collocations in sentences and presented them to L1 Polish participants of varying L2 English proficiency in two experiments. We investigated whether L2 calques would (1) be explicitly judged as non-native in the L1; (2) whether they would evoke differential brain response than native L1 Polish equivalents in the event-related potentials (ERPs). We also explored whether the sensitivity to CLI in calques depended on participants' level of proficiency in L2 English. The results indicated that native speakers of Polish assessed the calques from English as less acceptable than the correct Polish collocations. Still, there was no difference in online processing of correct and calques collocations as measured by the ERPs. This suggests a dissociation between explicit offline judgments and indices of online language processing. Interestingly, English L2 proficiency did not modulate these effects. The results indicate that the influence of English on Polish is so pervasive that collocational calques from this language are likely to become accepted and used by Poles.

Dataset Information

Coercive and legitimate authority impact tax honesty: evidence from behavioral and ERP experiments.

Publications

Coercive and legitimate authority impact tax honesty: evidence from behavioral and ERP experiments.

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