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