Gratitude and Self-Benefiting Obedience: Gratitude Eliciting Dishonest Behavior Out of Obedience

There is robust evidence that gratitude encourages virtuous conduct. However, this research reveals that gratitude may also increase the likelihood of cheating for personal gain through a heightened tendency toward obedience. Across two studies, participants engaged in a performance-based task offering a monetary reward. Those induced to feel grateful toward the experimenter were more likely to obey a command to disregard their actual score and report an inflated score to secure the reward. The effect was not observed when the benefit arose from a positive chance event (Study 1) and appeared to be driven by the need to maintain social harmony (Study 2). The findings demonstrate that grateful individuals could be more susceptible to social influence—even to the extent of obeying morally dubious directives. These results call for a reevaluation of the link between gratitude and moral decision-making.