The honest truth about dishonesty
The author, a behavioral economist challenges our preconceptions about dishonesty; we all cheat, whether it is copying a paper in the classroom, or white lies on our expense accounts. He explores how unethical behavior works in the personal, professional, and political worlds, and how it affects all of use, even as we think of ourselves as having high moral standards. He explores the question of dishonesty from Washington to Wall Street, and the classroom to the workplace, to examine why cheating is so prevalent and what can be done to prevent it.
Stats for nerds
5recommend
18mentions
14people
2012–2026years
50% recommend50% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- I found the book "the honest truth about dishonesty" by Dan Ariely very illuminating as to how dishonesty works, how it survives and when it goes away.
I suspect this article has done a good job of shining a spotlight on a situation where accountability has disappeared.
- I learned a lot reading the book "the honest truth about dishonesty" by dan ariely.
He did a whole bunch of really interesting experiments, like self-reporting how many you got wrong on a test before it is fed into a shredder and similar.
fascinating book.
How many of you work exactly 8 hours a day with your employer?
- I enjoyed reading the book "the honest truth about dishonesty" by Dan Ariely.
The section on how pharmaceutical companies work with doctors was eye opening. It is relatively easy to manipulate even a very honest person's loyalty.
(I'm not saying you are even in a position to be influenced)
- You should read "the honest truth about dishonesty" by dan ariely where scientific studies of conflicts of interest found folks fall for this stuff unconsciously and repeatably.
- The fact that they even mess with files outside their directory means any answer they give is ingenuous.
Some other steam games have much worse behavior. The EULA you had to accept for Square Enix games was so horrible that I have games purchased on my system that I will not play. I should probably ask steam for a refund.
If you want an interesting book to read, I recommend Dan Ariely's "The honest truth about dishonesty".
In particular, license agreements seem to work like disclosure he mentions. The way it works is that there is a veneer of justification that allows for all sorts of unethical behavior.
- > They are not (usually) psychopaths, they have feelings and empathy, but are just very good at rationalizing those feelings away.
I'm really glad you made this point, and I'll add that we have to remember that most people can be induced to make callous decisions with the wrong incentive structures and the right pressures from their management. In some environments, behavior we might deem callous is merely institutional for others for pragmatic reasons.
All too often, we forget that when building institutions (commercial, government, etc.), it's critical we don't inadvertently construct systems that give people incentives to do the wrong thing. We have to stop labeling normal people as psychopaths and remind each other we can all act callously under normal circumstances. Not exceptional circumstances, but normal pressures from management and colleagues.
Dan Ariely wrote a good book that tries to explain some of the mechanics: http://danariely.com/tag/the-honest-truth-about-dishonesty/
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