There is an emerging trend in digital interface design to include the dark mode (i.e., font in white against a dark background) in addition to the traditional default light mode (i.e., font in black against a white background). While this innovation was motivated by usability considerations, it is unknown whether and how different screen display modes can influence user behaviours. Drawing on the findings from environmental psychology, we propose that screen display mode can influence users’ moral decision making. Specifically, we focus on users’ decisions to conduct financial crimes and predict that users are more likely to conduct financial crimes when using dark (vs. light) mode. We propose perceived anonymity as the underlying mechanism and theorize the moderating effect of screen size. Two laboratory experiments were designed to test on two financial crimes, namely, insurance fraud and insider trading. The potential theoretical and practical contributions are discussed
