The Honest Truth About Dishonesty

The Honest Truth About Dishonesty reveals our motivation behind cheating, why it’s not entirely rational, and, based on many experiments, what we can do to lessen the conflict between wanting to get ahead and being good people.

When I ask you how you think people decide whether to cheat when they have a chance to, or not, you’ll probably say something like:

“Well, they consider how much they can get from cheating and then of course how likely it is for them to be caught. I guess the consequences will also play a role.”

Yup, that’s the picture we usually paint for ourselves – we’re so rational, right?

Actually, we’re not.

None of these things have as big an influence on cheating as you think.

Ariely did an experiment where people took a math test and were promised 50 cents for each correct answer. In one group, all answers were checked for correctness, in the other, they weren’t.

Of course, people in the second group cheated, they reported 6 solved problems on average, as opposed to 4 in the normal group.

However, even when the reward for each single answer went up to $10, people didn’t cheat more – the average remained 6 for the number of reported problems in the group without checking their results.

When he tweaked this experiment and allowed people in 3 different groups to shred either half or the entire sheet, plus eventually pay themselves from a big bowl of money, cheating remained the same on average as well.

Even though the likelihood to be caught was a lot less from each group to the next, this didn’t seem to influence how much people cheated at all.

So no, potential gains and likelihood of getting caught don’t really influence how much you cheat.

Then what does?

It’s about who you’re cheating to and what for. Whether you’re not correcting the waitress who gives you back too much cash or cheating on your spouse, now that makes a big difference! You don’t know the waitress at all, and after all, it’s her mistake if she gives you back too much money. There’s a big psychological distance between you and cheating, and this makes it easier for you to accept it. But when you’re about to cheat on the person you love the most and you know it’s entirely in your control and based on your own actions, justifying making the next move becomes a lot harder. Ariely tested this by placing a six-pack of Coke in the fridge of a student dorm and six $1 bills in the fridge of another. In both cases the students knew these items were off limits. While the $1 bills…