Magens Bay --San Thomas

Thursday, May 31, 2012

Did You Lock the Door?


Now that you have double checked, do you really believe that you would prevent the dishonest guys from coming in? If someone really wants to break in, they could, in no time, but who do we stop? Oh … the 98% of us! – Right!!
According to an article,  Why We Lie, at the Wall Street Journey, there are about 1% of people who are very honest and they won’t be dishonest no matter what. And another 1%, would always be dishonest regardless and they may come after you and pick your locks to steal something. You can’t worry about the outliers at the bottom, the 1% dishonest folks,  but you do need to worry about the rest 98% of the people. Why you asked?!

According to the article, we love to think that people are virtuous, but few bad apples spoil the bunch. If that is so, it would be much easier to scan the bad apples out, but the truth is, not really! The author of the article has done few experiments and found, when people are in charge of the “honor” system (count own correct answers) with a price tag reward, people tend to cheat and the percentage of cheating are NOT corresponding to the higher amount of the reward. In fact the amount of cheating was slightly lower when the reward was higher. –It was harder for their consciences level to acknowledge that they deserved the higher amount and still felt good about it.

Next variance of the experiment was to determine whether people cheat less if there is a chance to be caught. Not quite according to the author. Now what makes them cheat more or less?

  • When there a monetary involvement
  • Having a bad apple who set the example –Cheating is infectious
  • If we think that someone/our group would benefit from our cheating (“If I am already wearing fake Gucci sunglasses, then maybe I am more comfortable pushing some other ethical limits (we call this the "What the hell" effect). If I am mentally depleted from sticking to a tough diet, how can you expect me to be scrupulously honest? (It's a lot of effort!) If it is my teammates who benefit from my fudging the numbers, surely that makes me a virtuous person!” –cited from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304840904577422090013997320.html?mod=igoogle_wsj_gadgv1)
Okay. How many people you know that cheat on taxes or insurance claims! –Now you see the author’s point of view. Wait! Don’t’ give up just yet! Let’s examine on what push people toward more honesty? –Reinforce the rule upon them.

When the experiment was conducted by reading the *Ten Commandments* and such, the cheating was reduced to none. And at his conclusion, Mr. Ariely wrote, “But locking our doors against the dishonest monsters will not keep them out; they will always cheat their way in. It is the woman down the hallway—the sweet one who could not even carry away your flat-screen TV if she wanted to—who needs to be reminded constantly that, even if the door is open, she cannot just walk in and "borrow" a cup of sugar without asking.”

Hope you found this blog amusing :-) Thanks for accompanying me on this journey and until next time, take care!

Until next stop,
Journey of Life

19 comments:

  1. You are so smart, and I have a feeling I'm going to learn about from you and your blog :)

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    1. Thank you Judy. I am still learning and still have a lot to learn and perhaps we could learn together and from each other.

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  2. Honesty is one of my biggest requirements in friendship. I know a lot of people who 'cheat' on what they think are unimportant and victimless crimes, as it were, but for me, cheating is nothing different than telling a lie. Even lies that seem less hurtful than truths are still lies. My grandmother used to say, "A thief and a liar walk hand in hand." I try to always remember that.
    Great post! I'm following back, btw. ♥

    But wishing you would eliminate the stupid word verification...if you need to filter your comments, use the hold for approval option instead?

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    1. Thank you Jo for the suggestion and follow. I just updated my comment validation. --I didn't realize I had that option. Cool :-)

      Friendships and relationships that are based on lies are no longer worthy! --Sometimes someone would hide the truth from me and it really hurt when I discovered it. I wish they told me up front rather than awaiting for me to find out ...

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  3. Cheating is lying, and always comes back to haunt you in the end. Good post.♥

    Kathy
    http://gigglingtruckerswife.blogspot.com

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  4. Honesty is the best policy. The other stuff just comes back to haunt you in the end.

    Kathy
    http://gigglingtruckerswife.blogspot.com

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  5. It's too bad people aren't honest. Life would be much simpler if they were.

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  6. Hard lessons. Ones we have to teach our kids early.

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    1. Yes. They learn/attempt to lie at very young age too.

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  7. Nice Post...

    JayRyan'sBlog was inviting you to be a Guest Post Author..

    Thank you so much.

    -jayryan09-

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    1. First off, thank you for your visit and comment. And I would be so honored and happy to submit a guest post for your website. Thanks so much for the invite and I would do so soon.

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  8. Very interesting and well written as usual. I enjoy reading your blogs.

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    1. Thank you Sondra. You are very kind and I am happy you are enjoying my blogs. Btw., keep up the swimming! :-)

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  9. I love this! We should create signs that say "WE ARE THE 98%!!!!!!!!" hahahaha! People would be like- "No, the occupy movement uses a diff stat"....And then we can send this link to them. :)

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    1. LOL :-) It would be fun :-) Have a nice weekend, Tricia!

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  10. Very interesting post, thank you

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