1. Contents

2. Reception

3. References

The Honest Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone---Especially Ourselves is a 2012 book by the Duke University cognitive science professor Dan Ariely. It investigates why and when cheating occurs, debates its usefulness and questions how it can be discouraged.

The book was translated into Hebrew in 2013.

Contents

In The Honest Truth about Dishonesty, Ariely uses several experiments to investigate the nature of dishonesty. In one, he discovers that, in a refrigerator in a college dormitory containing cans of Coca-Cola and dollar bills, the soda cans would disappear faster because taking money would make the students feel as thieves while taking soda cans doesn't. In another experiment, an actor playing a University of Pittsburgh student took a test at rival Carnegie Mellon University. He deliberately and clearly cheated on the test and acted confused about some of the rules of the test. Ariely measured how the rest of the group responded and concluded that cheating is contagious. In addition to reporting on experiments he conducted, Ariely mentions his own experiences with dishonesty, such as once riding a train on a forged Eurail pass and being told, as a burn victim, that he would be all right despite the medical evidence to the contrary. He offers that honor codes and close supervision may decrease dishonesty somewhat but do not account for the psychological rationalization.^[1]

The author has conducted lab and public experiments to determine under what conditions people will cheat and by how much. Under circumstances where cheating is made possible, people cheat almost always, but only by a little amount of reward. People cheat up to the level where they start to feel bad about their own internal sense of integrity.

The author has found these results.

These factors increase the likelihood of dishonesty:

These factors decrease the likelihood of dishonesty:

"Sign to confirm honesty." The author found that having the person sign at the top of the form encourages more honesty in the information the person gives soon thereafter, rather than completing the form first, then signing at the bottom afterwards.

"Supervision." The author says that supervision makes cheating less possible, so there is no dishonesty.

"Provide a pledge" and "Moral reminders". The author found that having a person read the Ten Commandments or similar, just prior, decreased dishonesty. The author found that the normal levels of dishonesty returned say two weeks after signing an honour code.

Reception

References

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