Omertà in intragroup cheating: the role of ingroup identity in dishonesty and whistleblowing

Why are people willing to denounce or, contrarily, to keep silent on others' misconduct? We hypothesized that people would be more likely to cheat, and consequently less likely to blow the whistle, when among an ingroup (vs. outgroup). In two experiments, participants witnessed a same nationality or a different nationality group member cheating during a group task. Participants either had the opportunity to cheat themselves before witnessing this cheating act (Experiments 1 and 2) or did not have this opportunity (Experiment 2). In the ingroup condition, participants cheated more and denounced others' cheating less than in the outgroup condition (Experiments 1 and 2). However, when participants were not allowed to cheat themselves, they equally denounced ingroup and outgroup cheaters (Experiment 2). This provides evidence that cheating mediates the group effect on whistleblowing and is reminiscent of omerta, that is, the code of silence among criminals. We provide suggestions for future research.