Predictions are often inaccurate. Still, the direction of prediction errors may vary. Contrary to research on the intention-behavior gap, where people fail to live up to their ambitions, a study on “moral forecasting” found that people behaved honestly than they predicted. In this registered report, we present two close replication attempts and one conceptual replication attempt of this moral forecasting error across two experiments. In Experiment 1 ( = 1839), we recruited a general population sample from the same country as the original study (Canada) to an online experiment. We successfully replicated the moral forecasting error using a math-based cheating task from the original study: Predicted cheating was much higher in a moral forecasting condition than actual cheating in a moral action condition ( = 0.69). In Experiment 2 ( = 1381) we replicated the forecasting error again, using the same task in a general population sample from the U.S. ( = 0.72). However, we were unable to conceptually replicate the effect using a different dishonesty measure, the “mind game”, in Experiment 1 (φ = 0.03). We also could not reduce the forecasting error through a debiasing intervention in Experiment 2 ( = 0.01). Across both experiments, participants predicted that others would cheat much more than they would themselves. In this registered report, we conclude that the moral forecasting error is robust for the original cheating task. We also show that it can generalize contextually (from a lab to an online setting), but not to a different task. Future research may show exactly when predictions about one's own honesty are pessimistic rather than optimistic.

中文翻译：

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重新审视道德预测错误——预先注册的复制和延伸“我们比我们想象的更道德吗？”


预测常常是不准确的。尽管如此，预测误差的方向可能会有所不同。与意向行为差距的研究相反，即人们无法实现自己的抱负，一项关于“道德预测”的研究发现，人们的行为比他们的预测更诚实。在这份注册报告中，我们在两个实验中提出了对这种道德预测错误的两次接近复制尝试和一次概念复制尝试。在实验 1 ( = 1839) 中，我们从与原始研究相同的国家（加拿大）招募了一般人群样本进行在线实验。我们使用原始研究中基于数学的作弊任务成功复制了道德预测错误：道德预测条件下的预测作弊远高于道德行为条件下的实际作弊（= 0.69）。在实验 2 (= 1381) 中，我们在美国一般人群样本 (= 0.72) 中使用相同的任务，再次复制了预测误差。然而，在实验 1 (φ = 0.03) 中，我们无法使用不同的不诚实措施（即“智力游戏”）从概念上复制该效果。我们也无法通过实验 2 中的去偏干预来减少预测误差 (= 0.01)。在这两项实验中，参与者预测其他人会比他们自己作弊更多。在这份注册报告中，我们得出的结论是，道德预测误差对于原始作弊任务是稳健的。我们还表明，它可以根据上下文进行概括（从实验室到在线环境），但不能概括为不同的任务。未来的研究可能会准确地表明对自己诚实的预测何时是悲观的而不是乐观的。