I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Behavioral economist Dan Ariely makes the assertion that almost all people want to see themselves as honest, good people, but we're also all willing to lie and cheat just enough that we can rationalize it away as "not really" lying or cheating.
One of the studies he did involved having participants take a very hard math quiz with 20 questions. The control group was asked to turn in the paper and it was graded- with the average number of correct answers being 4. The experimental group was asked to shred their papers and then report how many they got right- and amazingly this group had 6 right on average! This group was cheating- but only by a tiny bit. As I think of this, I can remember a time or two I've taken a hard quiz in a magazine or done a test prep and felt that I was really close on several that I missed and thus that I probably "really" did a bit better than my actual performance. Which is of course completely irrational and self-deceiving, but it appears to be extremely common.
Ariely expanded the study in a wide variety of ways. One that I found particularly interesting was that he made rewards dependent on how many answers were correct. Participant groups were offered either $0.25, $0.50, $1, $2, $5, or $10. If people were lying purely out of a selfish self-interest, you would expect for cheating to increase as the reward increased. However, they found cheating was the same (2 questions) for all groups and slightly decreased for the $10 group. Because at $10 per question, reporting the wrong number was harder for participants to rationalize and it felt more deceitful.
The key to how much we lie/ cheat seems to be related to how much we deceive ourselves in to believing our lie. Ariely provided a different quiz to participants and this time the control group averaged about 50% correct. The experimental group received the same quiz but with an answer key at the bottom. Suddenly, this group reported having 70% correct. The group was then asked to rate how well they thought they would do an equivalent test with no answer key at the bottom and their payment depended on how accurate their predicted score was. If people acknowledged that they were genuinely cheating by using the answer code, they would say less than 70%. But people did not acknowledge it, and felt confident that they could get 70%! While this is clearly foolish, I can remember taking practice tests and after doing each problem, looking at the answer key "just for that one" but maybe glancing another answer out of the corner of my eye and then finding that problem much easier to answer. I can see how easy it would be to rationalize that I'd genuinely gotten them all right.
The book expounds upon topics such as our inability to overcome conflicts of interest, how we are more willing to cheat when it benefits others, how much we cheat when we feel wronged, and so many more- all of which are incredibly interesting. While it's somewhat upsetting just how willing we all are to lie to ourselves, it also rings true to my experience of people. What areas and ranges people feel comfortable in fudging the truth may vary, but most people seem willing to fudge just a bit. The book does offer hope. Simple things like a statement in front of quizzes stating "I will not cheat" that ask for a signature dramatically reduced cheating. Even asking people to remember the 10 commandments reduced cheating. I think the positive part of Ariely's message is that almost all of us DESIRE to be good. It seems like most people aren't going to go out of their way to lie and cheat. They only do it when it's so easy that they can deny to themselves that they're even doing it. I also think helping people be aware of areas where us human are most susceptible to self-deceit goes a long way towards helping us overcome those pitfalls and try to design systems that remove the temptation to cheat as much as possible. While all of the little cheats add up to a tremendous amount of cumulative dishonesty, I think people's inclination towards goodness is incredibly powerful and is what allows our society to be the fairly safe and functioning place that is.
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