Despite the good humor with which Ariely discusses his ingenious experiments, this is depressing stuff. But there is hope. Although it is easy to induce dishonest behavior in people, it is also easy to reduce the incidence of such behavior. Mostly, small reminders of basic moral standards tend to improve behavior. Whether it’s the Ten Commandments, an honor code or a declaration of professional principles, bringing moral standards to mind reduces cheating. Signing a pledge (at the top of the page) before filling out a form is more effective at reducing dishonesty than signing a pledge after completing a form. Ariely likes having students write out their own honor codes on assignments so that they have to think about ethics rather than just signing something automatically.
He offers some recommendations on conflicts of interest, particularly in medicine. The problem is that many of our professionals systematically find themselves in conflict situations and that they fool themselves about not falling into unethical behavior. And when these professionals know their clients well, when they are most trusted, the worst conflicts tend to arise. Whether we are on the client side or the professional side, we are likely to tell ourselves that these situations don’t apply to us and the people we trust. We fool ourselves, and so we don’t recognize the dishonesty.
(Harper) - ”The Honest Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone — Especially Ourselves” by Dan Ariely
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Ariely shows us how some basic factors, such as being tired or hungry, undermine our efforts to be ethical. I was struck here, as I was in Daniel Kahneman’s excellent “Thinking, Fast and Slow,” by the example of judges who tended to defer to parole boards as the judges got hungrier. The concept of “ego depletion” — that we can run out of the strength to do what we know we should — reminds us that willpower is a muscle. It takes energy to do the right thing.
We also learn that, once cheating starts, it tends to gain momentum and become contagious. That’s why we shouldn’t tolerate small indiscretions; it lowers the bar for everyone.
Ariely raises the bar for everyone. In the increasingly crowded field of popular cognitive science and behavioral economics, he writes with an unusual combination of verve and sagacity. He asks us to remember our fallibility and irrationality, so that we might protect ourselves against our tendency to fool ourselves. I guess only advanced hindsight will one day tell us how successful we have been.
Michael S. Roth
is the president of Wesleyan University and the author of “Memory, Trauma, and History: Essays on Living With the Past.”
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