I'm a good, honest person that also selfishly benefits from being (unintentionally) dishonest - wait, WHAT?!

A Documentary Review of Dan Ariely's (Dis)Honesty: The Truth About Lies.

Did this article's title strike you? Good, that was my intention! It is true, that people are naturally irrational, bad decision-makers, myself included.

I'd like to share a personal example. I live next to a self-service farmers market stand that relies on selling produce under the honor system (with no monitoring of payment, whatsoever, you just anonymously put money in a concealed bucket). While at the market yesterday, I picked up a couple of vegetables that were priced in total at $4, however, as you could possibly guess from my gestures, I chose only to pay $3. I'm sharing this example only because I'd like to relay that we ALL make choices similar to the one that I've experienced (whether it be purchasing something, fudging the numbers at work, or even being involved in infidelity). Our human behavior guides us to cheating "just a little bit" while making ourselves feel that our actions are socially acceptable. But why is that? WHY do we cheat?!?!

Dan Ariely is a leading expert in the field of Behavioral Economics where he studies human behavior (such as rationality vs. irrationality and good vs. bad decisions) and he creates experiments to test the outcomes of human behavior (like, when referencing my own example, if others are willing to pay less under an honor system, what influences led me to do so, and how to correct dishonesty). Behavioral Economics challenges many of the misconceptions of standard economics in that it doesn't place any assumptions about human behavior, it only studies it, it assumes that people are NOT perfect decision-makers and that we are all irrational beings, that we don't compare all of the options when making a decision, and we have limitations of cognitive capacity where we are only able to conceptualize the short-term.

"We are miopic and vindictive beings, and we are not able to consider all of the options.

We don’t always behave in a perfectly rational way."

Dan Ariely, (Dis)Honesty: The Truth About Lies

But what drives us to act SO dishonestly? That's where the Fudge Factor comes into play! In Ariely's Documentary, he describes the Fudge Factor as "the ability to misbehave and think of ourselves as good people. That is, cheating just a little bit so that we don’t have to pay any price in terms of the image that we view ourselves in."

An example could be going 35 mph in a speed limit zone of 30 mph. We ALL do it, after all, so doesn't that make it socially okay? I'll get to that level of thinking... The Fudge Factor can also include convincing ourselves on all kinds of things that are not perfectly true (for example, being a better driver than the average person).

So, why are we driven to drive a little faster than the speed limit (pun intended)? Mr. Ariely points out elements that can change the magnitude of the Fudge Factor (meaning, internal and external influences for why we choose to make irrationally bad decisions). These factors include:

When relating the first psycho-social motivator of "Everybody's Doing It" towards this type of behavior/mentality, one is saying to themselves "It's okay to _____ because this person/group/company/etc. is doing _____, as well. So, therefore, that means that it's easier for me to rationalize that act as acceptable. This enables people to cheat to a higher degree and is just one of the primary motivators for why people easily make irrational decisions.

Hence the popularity of the cliché line below ? (just to a more intense extent) However, we know that this is a very obvious example of a "bad decision", I thought it'd be funny to include and compare/reference to smaller daily decisions that we make.

An example of someone who used the Fudge Factor to excel in his career is that of Joe Papp, a Professional Cyclist, from Cleveland, Ohio. He was a Cyclist while in University but took a break to focus on academics. Once returning to the sport, he found that races were different and much more fastly-paced than he remembered. How did he cope and match the performance of other athletes? He doped up. This EPO drug improved his performance of upwards of 12-13%. Was it worth it in the end? Obviously no, he explained that his decision in taking EPO came with many consequences. He used multiple justifications for cheating such as everyone's complicit (everybody's doing it), everyone has a shared interest in keeping the use of drugs to improve performance quiet by supporting one another (lying for others), and there were social norms surrounding the mainstream use of these drugs within the cycling community. These are all examples of psychological and situational factors that contributed to his justification for cheating. In the end, Mr. Papp displayed outcomes of regret shame remorse, loss of social standing, and loss of trust within the cycling community (and I'm sure, within his personal life was affected, as well).

When reflecting on past publications that I've studied, I've found that Cents & Sensibility argued for going further than social science experiments (just as Professor Ariely does). The authors of Cents & Sensibility (Gary Saul Morson and Morton O. Schapiro) argued that we need to expand our empathy for the subjects of economic cases by training in the humanities by reading literature, watching plays, and studying other disciplines like religion, history, etc. However, this documentary gets closer to their idealism by including the stories that the subjects themselves told: so, it's a blend of traditional economics with Behavioral elements. Meaning, the examples shared in Ariely's documentary CAN be looked at as the traditional economists do, but this model (within 'Cents & Sensibility') is not optimal or precise when leaving out the B.E. approach as provided and examined by Dan Ariely.

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However, Mr. Ariely shares a method that we (as employers, groups, or corporations) can implement to eliminate the act of dishonesty. Ariely and his team found that simply by reading/rehearsing the 10 commandments/a moral honor code NOBODY cheated and everyone exemplified proper behavior. To add, this approach works regardless of if someone is religious or not. It is crucial for us to remind ourselves of our own moral fiber by holding tiny interventions. Let's all give this strategy a try when we find ourselves (for example) at a golf outing and wanting to kick the ball a bit closer in order to win.

Lastly, when observing how society benefits from small cheating actions, we can't remind ourselves that (as stated by David Halpern at 1:20:57 into the documentary) that "High social trust builds economic growth."

So, let's build a better version of ourselves and, as a result, our society/community.

Dan Ariely (at 1:22:54):

“It’s not about being bad, it’s about being human. We need to think about how we can protect ourselves against our own bad behavior, as well as the bad behavior of those around us.

We have much more to learn and gain when understanding our ethical shortcomes. It’s not going to be simple, but we all have the capacity to build an ethical and more honest world.”

Mr. Ariely is my all-time favorite B.E. researcher in the field. If you noticed yourself resonating with his research transcribed in my article, then please take a look at his TED Talks, Personal and Organization Website, and he even has an app where you can access all of his research (called Pocket Ariely)!