Feldman has also reached some of his own conclusions about honesty, based more on his experience than the data. He has come to believe that morale is a big factor—that an office is more honest when the employees like their boss and their work. He also believes that employees further up the corporate ladder cheat more than those down below. He got this idea after delivering for years to one company spread out over three floors—an executive floor on top and two lower floors with sales, service, and administrative employees. (Feldman wondered if perhaps the executives cheated out of an overdeveloped sense of entitlement. What he didn’t consider is that perhaps cheating was how they got to be executives.) Which idea from the excerpt best addresses the counterclaim that people are only honest when there is a financial incentive?
Employees who move further up the corporate ladder tend to be more dishonest.
Employees tend to be more honest when they like their boss and their work.
Executives might act dishonestly out of an overdeveloped sense of entitlement.
Different employees of the same business demonstrate varying levels of honesty.