Cognitively Yours 1.25
"We do want to project ourselves as very honest persons and wonderful human beings, while on the other hand we do want to benefit from cheating to the level it does not affect our image as an honest person"
People like to think of themselves as honest. However, dishonesty pays and it often pays well. How do people resolve this conflict? This research shows that people behave dishonestly enough to profit but honestly enough to delude themselves of their own integrity. A little bit of dishonesty gives a taste of profit without spoiling a positive self-view. Treachery can be rewarding, as punishment for the treacherous in the real world is neither swift nor sure.
Is dishonesty an outcome of cost benefit analysis
Imagine a team battling to save the match. They indulge in time delaying tactics. The thought process of this decision has been based on weighting the conceivable cost - being fined for slow over rate -against the benefit of saving the match from the jaws of defeat. On the basis of cost benefit calculation, we decide to be dishonest if the benefits outweigh the consequences.
The rational approach to dishonesty are comprised of three basic elements: 1) the benefit that one stands to gain from the crime 2) the probability of getting caught and 3) the expected punishment if one is caught. By comparing the first component (the gains) with the last two components (the costs), the rational human being can determine whether committing a crime is worth it or not.
But, this simple view of dishonesty is inaccurate and incomplete.
More money, less cheating
An experiment conducted at MIT campus offering student $10 for about ten minutes of their time. Each participant was given a sheet of paper containing a series of twenty different matrices and were told that their task was to find in each of these matrices two numbers that added up to ten. They had five minutes to solve as many as twenty matrices as possible and they would be paid 50 cents per correct answer. In the control condition, the correct answers are counted and money paid. In the other condition viz shredder condition, the student will report the performance shredding the answer sheet and get paid based on his statement. As expected, students performed better in the shredder condition. In the control condition participants solved four matrixes, while in the shredder condition, they claimed to have solved six matrices. This overall increase was widespread among lots of people. However, in another condition when participants were offered more money say $10, the level of cheating decreased. This insensitivity to quantum of reward clearly shows dishonesty is not an outcome of cost-benefit analysis. The reason why more money need not lead to more cheating, as at higher amounts it was harder for them to cheat and still feel good about their sense of integrity.
Nudges to do the right thing and controls do prevent dishonesty.
The gift shops were run like lemonade stands. There were no cash registers, just cash boxes into which the volunteers deposited cash and from which they made change. Though the gift shops did a roaring business, selling more than $4,00,000 worth merchandise a year, about $1,50,000 disappeared each year. With many efforts to stop the pilferage not bearing fruit, they set up an inventory system with price lists and sales records. The retirees were told to list down what was sold and what was received, and the thievery stopped. The problem was not a single thief but the multitude of elderly, well-meaning, art-loving volunteers who would help themselves to the goods and loose cash lying around.
“We are going to take things from each other if we have a chance -- many people need controls around them for them to do the right thing.”
Complexity of dishonesty
Eight-year-old Jimmy comes home from school with a note from his teacher. “Jimmy stole a pencil from the fellow student.” Jimmy’s father is furious. He says “If you needed a pencil, I would have brought dozens of pencils from work.”
This is the complexity of human dishonesty that a boy stealing a pencil from a classmate is definitely punishable, but we are willing to take pencils from work place without a second thought.
Impact of religious reminders on dishonesty
Dan Ariely took a group of 450 participants and split them into two groups. Half of them were asked to recall the Ten Commandments and them tempted them on a particular task. The other half were asked to recall ten books they had read in high-school before setting them the opportunity to cheat. There was widespread but moderate cheating. On the other hand, in the group that was asked to recall the Ten Commandments, no cheating was observed. This is despite the fact that none from the group was able to recall all ten. Merely trying to recall moral standards was enough to improve moral behaviour.
This clearly showed that our willingness and tendency to cheat could be diminished, if we are given reminders of ethical standards. If one is averse to using religious tenets into society on a broader basis as a means to reduce cheating, a statement signed mentioning a pledge not to cheat. A group of MIT and Yale students were asked to sign such a code before giving half of them a chance to cheat on the tasks. The students who were not asked to sign the statement cheated a little bit, but those who signed the statement did not cheat at all. These Universities do not have any honour code. In Princeton which had honor code and a crash course on morality for freshers, similar experiment was conducted two weeks after their ethics training - tempting them to cheat like students of MIT and Yale. They were as bad as Princeton and Yale students. However, when they were asked to sign the honour code afresh, they did not cheat at all like Princeton and Yale students. The existence of honour code did not have a lasting influence on the moral fibre of the students.
These show mixed results. On the depressing side, it is very difficult to alter our behaviour so that we become more ethical and that a crash course will not suffice. Long-term cultural change is very difficult to achieve. On the positive side, when we are simply reminded of ethical standards, we behave more honourably.
Disclosure: A panacea?
What is the best way to deal with conflicts of interest? For most of us, “full disclosure” springs to mind. When it comes to advise, as long as advisors publicly declare exactly what they are doing, all will be well. If the professionals were to simply make their incentives clear and known to their clients, the clients can then decide for themselves how much to rely on their (biased) advice and then make more informed decisions. In theory, disclosure seems to be a fantastic solution. But experiments show that disclosure is not an effective cure. In fact, it could make things worse.
In an experiment conducted, participants played a game in one of two roles.
Role of estimator: To guess the quantum of money in a large-jar full of loose change as accurately as possible. The closer the estimates, the more money they will get. The other group of participants played the role of advisers, and their task was to advise the estimators on their guesses.
The estimators were shown the jar from a distance for a few seconds, the advisers had more time to examine it and they were informed about the range of money in the jar. This gave advisers an informational edge. It gave reason for estimators to rely on their advice. In the control condition, the advisers were paid according to the accuracy of the estimators’ guesses, so no conflict of interest will arise. In the conflict of interest condition, the advisers were paid more as the estimators over guessed the value of the coins in the jar to a larger degree. The higher the overestimation, the less the estimator made but more the adviser pocketed. In the control condition, advisers suggested an average value of $16.50, while in the conflict of interest condition, the advisers suggested an estimate that was over $20. They increased by $4. They perhaps did not give a dramatically exaggerated advice, as the estimators who have seen the jar would have rejected their advice. Also, most people cheat just enough to still feel good about themselves. In the conflict of interest plus disclosure condition, the advisors did increase their estimates by another $4 to $24. However, the estimators did discount their estimates but by only $2. They did not subtract really enough. They did not sufficiently recognise the extent and power of their advisers’ conflict of interest.
The main takeaway is that disclosure created greater bias. Will disclosure make it worse for all clients in all the cases is debatable, but may not always make things better.
Why we blow it when we are tired. Impact of ego depletion
At the end of a really long hard day. You have to choose a restaurant for dinner. One with fresh salads, a Chinese restaurant serving spicy food and pizza restaurant serving cheesy slices. Which restaurant will you choose? By contrast, consider what your choice might be if the meal were after an afternoon spent relaxing at home. On a stressful day, we choose one of the less healthy alternatives. We are continually tempted throughout the day and that our ability to fight this temptation weakens with time and accumulated resistance. True, we cannot avoid being exposed to all threats to our self-control. The only strategy is to walk away from the draw of desire before we are close enough to be snagged by it. It is a tough advice in reality but it is relatively easier to fast rather than to diet.
Some upsides of lying
When we lie for another person’s benefit, we call it a “white lie”. We are not doing for selfish reasons. Our compliments to our friends, relatives, spouse may be white lies but are social niceties. Dan Ariely who suffered 70 per cent with third degree burns was told well - meaning lies about the kind of pain to expect. He was inserted needles. When the time came to withdraw the needles, the nurses told him that it is a simple procedure and there will be no pain. It was painful in the end but in hindsight, had they told the truth before the extraction of needles, he would have spent the weeks before the extraction anticipating in misery, dread and stress. There are certain circumstances in which white lies are justified.
Altruistic cheating
Work environments are socially complex with multiple forces at play. Some of those forces might make it easy for group-based processes to turn collaborations into cheating opportunities in which individuals cheat to a higher degree because they feel that their actions can benefit the organisations they work for or can benefit people they like and care about. This tendency to care about others can also make it possible to be more dishonest in situations where acting unethically will benefit others. Robin hood is a classic example of altruistic cheating.
For those who swear that people were honest in the past, this is a poem by Apoth E Cary in 1873;
Swindle, swindle everywhere,
Every shape and size.
Take the swindle out of a man,
And you’ve nothing left but lies,
Philanthropy is made to cover a fraud,
Charity keeps humbugs in tow.
And we’re swindled at home, swindled abroad,
And swindled wherever we go.
For the world is full of humbugs
Managed by dishonest men:
One moves on, another comes,
And we’re swindled again and again.
In short, we do want to project ourselves as very honest persons and wonderful human beings, while on the other hand we do want to benefit from cheating to the level it does not affect our image as an honest person. We would like to have the cake and eat it too. We can reap the benefits of dishonesty while maintaining a positive image of ourselves.
It is more irrational forces that drive dishonest behaviour than rational forces. Dishonesty is pervasive. We do not realise how it works magic on us and most important, we don’t see it in ourselves.
Reference: The (Honest) Truth about dishonesty - How we lie to everyone, especially ourselves by Dan Ariely.
Photo credit: www.freepik.com
Comments
Post a Comment