The Honest Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone–Especially Ourselves by Dr. Dan Ariely (PDF)

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“A lively tour through the impulses that cause many of us to cheat, the book offers especially keen insights into the ways in which we cut corners while still thinking of ourselves as moral people.” — TimeDan Ariely, behavioral economist and New York Times bestselling author of Predictably Irrational and The Upside of Irrationality, returns with a thought-provoking work that challenges our preconceptions about dishonesty and urges us to take an honest look at ourselves.Does the chance of getting caught affect how likely we are to cheat?How do companies pave the way for dishonesty?Does collaboration make us more or less honest?Does religion improve our honesty?Most of us think of ourselves as honest, but, in fact, we all cheat. From Washington to Wall Street, the classroom to the workplace, unethical behavior is everywhere. None of us is immune, whether it’s a white lie to head off trouble or padding our expense reports. In The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty, award-winning author Dan Ariely shows why some things are easier to lie about than others; how getting caught matters less than we think in whether we cheat; and how business practices pave the way for unethical behavior, both intentionally and unintentionally. Ariely explores how unethical behavior works in the personal, professional, and political worlds, and how it affects all of us, even as we think of ourselves as having high moral standards. But all is not lost. Ariely also identifies what keeps us honest, pointing the way for achieving higher ethics in our everyday lives.With compelling personal and academic findings, The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty will change the way we see ourselves, our actions, and others.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Review “Ariely raises the bar for everyone. In the increasingly crowded field of popular cognitive science and behavioral economics, he writes with an unusual combination of verve and sagacity.” — Washington Post“I thought [Ariely’s] book was an outstanding encapsulation of the good hearted and easygoing moral climate of the age.” — David Brooks, The New York Times“The best-selling author’s creativity is evident throughout. . . . A lively tour through the impulses that cause many of us to cheat, the book offers especially keen insights into the ways in which we cut corners while still thinking of ourselves as moral people.” — Time.com“Captivating and astute. . . . In his characteristic spry, cheerful style, Ariely delves deep into the conundrum of human (dis)honesty in the hopes of discovering ways to help us control our behavior and improve our outcomes.” — Publishers Weekly“Ariely writes in a conversational tone one might associate with a popular teacher, providing readers with a working knowledge of what shapes our ethics—or lack thereof.” — Kirkus Reviews“Dan Ariely ingeniously and delightfully teases out how people balance truthfulness with cheating to create a reality out of wishful-blindness reality. You’ll develop a deeper understanding of your own personal ethics—and those of everybody you know.” — Mehmet Oz, MD; Vice-Chair and Professor of Surgery at Columbia University and host of The Dr. Oz Show“Anyone who lies should read this book. And those who claim not to tell lies are liars. So they sould read this book too. This is a fascinating, learned, and funny book that will make you a better person.” — A.J. Jacobs, author of The Year of Living Biblically and Drop Dead Healthy“I was shocked at how prevalent mild cheating was and how much more harmful it can be, cumulatively, compared to outright fraud. This is Dan Ariely’s most interesting and most useful book.” — Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of The Black Swan“The Upside of Irrationality is an eye-opening, insightful look at human behavior, proving that defying logic is part of what makes us human.” — Boston Globe“As in his previous book, the best-selling Predictably Irrational, the experiments Ariely describes generate entertaining and often counterintuitive insights. . . . The result is more than just a handbook for business managers or a collection of snippets to relay at cocktail parties. . . . [D]eciding how to apply his insights is a pleasure that lingers long after the book is finished.” — New York Times Book Review“A taxonomy of financial folly.” — The New Yorker“An entertaining look at human foibles.” — New York Times“Through a remarkable series of experiments, Ariely presents a convincing case. . . . Required reading for politicians and Wall Street executives.” — Booklist From the Back Cover The New York Times bestselling author of Predictably Irrational and The Upside of Irrationality returns with a thought-provoking work that challenges our preconceptions about dishonesty and urges us to take an honest look at ourselves.Does the chance of getting caught affect how likely we are to cheat?How do companies pave the way for dishonesty?Does collaboration make us more or less honest?Does religion improve our honesty?Most of us think of ourselves as honest, but, in fact, we all cheat. From Washington to Wall Street, the classroom to the workplace, unethical behavior is everywhere. None of us is immune, whether it’s a white lie to head off trouble or padding our expense reports. In The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty, award-winning, bestselling author Dan Ariely shows why some things are easier to lie about than others; how getting caught matters less than we think in whether we cheat; and how business practices pave the way for unethical behavior, both intentionally and unintentionally. Ariely explores how unethical behavior works in the personal, professional, and political worlds, and how it affects all of us, even as we think of ourselves as having high moral standards. But all is not lost. Ariely also identifies what keeps us honest, pointing the way for achieving higher ethics in our everyday lives.With compelling personal and academic findings, The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty will change the way we see ourselves, our actions, and others. About the Author Dan Ariely is the bestselling author of Predictably Irrational, The Upside of Irrationality, and The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty. He is the James B. Duke Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics at Duke University and is the founder of the Center for Advanced Hindsight. His work has been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, and elsewhere. He lives in North Carolina with his family. Read more

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐As other reviewers have posted, the “Honest Truth About Dishonesty” is an interesting book in and of itself to gain a better understanding of how behavioral economists approach business-related topics. I decided to read it more specifically in the context of two issues now in the news. First, there’s the political debate about the goals and methods of people in power (a.k.a. the 1%, new upper class, or elites). In his book “Coming Apart” Charles Murray describes these elites in glowing terms as the people with brains and creativity who are identified by tests like the SAT, thrown together in elite universities and then again in corporate and government jobs to propel our economy and society forward. But in his book “Twilight of the Elites” Chris Hayes describes how some of these same elites have in fact propelled us through a failed decade where they have perpetrated frauds, engaged in unethical and dangerous behaviors for profit, and allowed cheating to become a norm in their institutions.Second is the issue of how we are all affected in this kind of make-it-up-as-you-go environment. In his book “A Piece of the Action” Joe Nocera described in 1994 how the money revolution had “created a layer of complication to our already complicated lives, adding responsibilities that didn’t exist before, making it necessary for us to learn about things that never used to be among our concerns. We can make mistakes with our money now, and those mistakes can be costly.” In the almost 20 years since Nocera wrote that, things have only gotten more complicated — what with vanishing pensions, gyrating stock markets, more onerous health care options, and housing crises. Hayes wonders now “whether the greatest threat we face is distrust … in a society bankrupted by norms and order or … the actual malfeasance and corruption of the pillar institutions themselves.”So with my interest in those two particular issues — both clearly affected by dishonesty — Dan Ariely’s book promised to add some unique insights. While there is no shortage of opinions on these topics, Ariely comes at them from a fresh and non-political perspective. His chapter intros and set-ups to his various studies allude to these bigger issues, but he structures his experiments to learn psychologically whether and why people cheat in specific and controlled situations. Another reviewer commented that college students might not be the best subjects to use, but by Murray’s reckoning this is the formative age where many of our future decision-makers start to establish their work habits, their team interactions, their moralities, and their sense of how far they can go before they get caught. I especially like how Ariely structures his chapters — and presumably the series of experiments he selects — around extensions of earlier experiments he’s already conducted. So if people do cheat, do they cheat more as they get tired? Do they admit to themselves that they cheat under certain situations? Do they cheat more when they see others cheating around them? Do they cheat more when they’re working creatively? By covering each of these and more aspects in separate chapters, you can see how these propensities to cheat might build upon each other, especially in work situations when the pressure is on to perform in opportunistic environments.So what did I take from Ariely’s work on the two topics I was interested in? While the book does not have specific chapters that address either of these two issues in those exact framings, Ariely does describe situations and scenarios that both leaders and each of us find ourselves in which actual dishonesty or the temptation to benefit dishonestly comes into play. On the elite dishonesty topic, one can see how a group of people under pressure to find new ways of making money, to get around specific regulations, or to take advantage of new technologies might be predisposed to cheat. Knowing that other people are billing more liberally and being less than honest almost forces honest people to skirt the rules. Ariely points out that creative people who are driven to make their organizations win are often the most effective liars and cheaters. He explains — much as Nocera did in describing new financial products 17 years ago — how new technologies are often used initially to gain unfair advantages over consumers until regulators and consumers figure them out and protect themselves better. All of this indicates how cheating can become rampant without constant vigilance. I would assume Ariely supports a more regulatory environment, given what he knows about what people do when left to their own devices.Ariely also offers some observations about how and why it is difficult for all of us to protect ourselves when marketers have taken advantage of people’s readiness to cut corners. He describes how pharmaceutical reps are trained to offer samples and freebies to doctors until the doctors feel obliged to then lean in their direction. And how our trust in doctors, bankers and financial advisors after working with them for long periods almost makes us bigger marks for recommending actions that may not actually be necessary. As you read these chapters, you get the feeling that we almost expect to be cheated because we might cheat ourselves in similar circumstances.All in all, the book is a little depressing because it implies that — since we are all somewhat afflicted by doing things we can get away with — we may not be so eager to punish others for their dishonesty. No one has been prosecuted for their misdeeds in causing the mortgage debacle, for instance, when previously executives were prosecuted for the Enron and Worldcom frauds. Are we just getting used to these behaviors, even when they almost destroy our economy? Are we so dependent now on the elites that run our institutions that we can overlook these “small discretions” because if they’re successful it may lead to improved economies and job creation? Is it becoming more true that the ends justify the means?Ariely does not offer any specific ideas for curbing dishonesty. For instance, as a professor he is aware that his students use their laptops and cellphones to “multitask” during his classes and that some students may go to essay mills to purchase term papers. He went so far as to try to purchase an essay from one of these “services” to assess the state of that “industry.” Upon seeing what he got, Ariely observes, “we were rather relieved, figuring that the day had not yet arrived when students can submit papers from essay mills and get good grades. Moreover, we concluded that if students did try to buy a paper from an essay mill, just like us, they would feel they had wasted their money and wouldn’t try again.” In other words, it wasn’t that it was wrong that they did it … only that the technology hadn’t figured out yet how to provide such services. The onward march of fraud and corruption.Ariely summarizes that while most people have a propensity to cheat, by and large we all “pass up the vast majority of these opportunities every day without thinking we should take them. This means that we’re off to a good start in our effort to improve our moral fiber.” My assessment is that if you read the book you’ll know better to protect yourself and have some idea of why the people you might have trusted are motivated to cheat.

⭐It is no surprise that dishonesty exists in abundance. The early economic work on dishonesty considered it a rational calculation based off cost/benefit analysis which fits nicely into pre-existing models for human behaviour for economists. Subsequent experimental work has shown this to be inaccurate and failing in many dimensions. Dan Ariely i a behavioural economist and uses The Honest Truth About Dishonesty as a means to discuss in various contexts how we can be dishonest, how we justify it to ourselves and how the environment impacts out decision making. Some of it is quite intuitive, but much of the book is enlightening and provocative. I’ll give a quick overview of the contents.The rational crime model, as mentioned above, was the first model of crime being a result of rational computing of the cost benefit of committing the crime. The author first discusses examples which contradict the pure conclusions of such cost benefit analysis for example using examples of cab driver fairs for the blind versus those with sight (the rational outcome would favor those with sight to get a shorter route, but it turns out the opposite is true). Other examples like white collar crime and the magnitude of cheating in experiments where one is not observed cheating are discussed (in experiments where the monetary reward increased the magnitude of cheating remained the same in many examples showing that cheating was not based off the risk reward in any pure sense). The author continues on with many more examples of cheating that we can rationalize and how we exaggerate the cheating of others. Golf and the readjustment of the ball is discussed (with using a club being much more self justifiable means to move the ball than picking up and moving the ball with ones hand for a bad lie). How the mulligan is typically used on the first hole as one can easier rationalize that the game has not started on the first hole than a subsequent. The author goes on to discuss how our personal incentives can often cloud our professional judgement- for example the use of medical equipment post the purchase to justify the purchase rather than objectively judging each case for such medical equipment. The author discusses how fatigue affects our honesty and how concentration and resisting temptation just sets us up to fall for it shortly thereafter by wearing us down mentally. The author also looks at the subject of fake goods (ie designer goods). The show how the wearing of fake goods increases the ability to be dishonest on disassociated tests, indicating breaking small ethical codes can impact aggregate behaviour by shifting ones moral compass. The author analysis how we can convince ourselves that we are better than we are at testing when the solutions are subtely within sight. Probably one of the more contentious parts of the book is about how creative people are better at lying. The study was done on people with more white matter in a certain part of the brain which is the connective tissue among neurons- the argument being those who can use a wider range of reasons can more easily rationalize their behaviour and that ability to aggregate the larger range experience and knowledge is where creativity comes from. Essentially was shown that creative people have greater ability to rationalize their bad behaviour through creative story telling and self delusion. Definitely an interesting idea. The author then discusses how cheating and dishonest behaviour can propogate as a function of the environment and whether the behaviour is legitimate in the eyes of the group thus discussing how much is cheating a function of social norms vs internal moral compass. Interesting experiments show how much whether cheating is done inside or outside the group impacts its influence on the groups behaviour. FInally the author discusses how cheating emerges in collaborative groups in which catering to peers is balanced by the individuals in the group.All the experiments included are good food for thought about how people can act in various situations and how they justify their behaviour. The author is quick to point out that rationally we would all cheat and be dishonest more if it were a rational calculation so our nature is quite collaborative and based on reciprocity. He also throughout the book shows how certain principles help keep us in line (repeating honor codes, asking ourselves whether we would be acting differently if our peers were watching etc…) and such basic guidelines will be useful in helping us keep ourselves more in line passively. Much is intuitive in the book, but the way the information i put together makes it very enjoyable to read and informative as well, definitely recommended.

⭐If this is the first book you read by Dan Ariely, you will probably find it well written, entertaining, full of insights and counter-intuitive facts about cheating. This is a book based on insights obtained from experimentation centered around a specific subject: cheating.From that perspective this book is an excellent read for those that want to understand cheating and lying, importantly even lying to ourselves. The author arguments wery well how the traditional economists’ model of looking for self interest does not work for lying or cheating. He shows very convincingly that we all cheat by a little bit, while trying to keep a good self-image of ourselves. More interestingtly, he explores, through experimentation, what factors influence cheating, some reducing it, others increasing it. In short, if you have not read any book from Dan Ariely yet and you are interested in the subject of cheating and lying, this is a very nice book.Now, I have read Dan Ariely’s two previous books and I was slightly disappointed for a couple of reasons. First there is a significant amount of material that was already covered in previous books. Second, compared to the other two, this book feels rather “light”. Knowing the other two books I expected more content.I would give it 3.5 stars, but because I had to choose between 3 and 4, I give it 4, thinking especially about those who have not yet read any book from this author.

⭐I first heard about this book through a friend. I picked it up in a local bookshop during a lunch hour and raced through the first 30 or so pages enjoying the clear moral questions that the book brings.The author describes the results of thousands of experiments that he has conducted to show in what situations we are likely to cheat or lie and by how much. For example are we more or less likely to lie about how we did in a test if we know we cannot be caught? Or if there is monetary reward on offer? Or if we work in a group with complete strangers? The experiments are clearly explained and easy to follow. The results do seem predictable, but perhaps that is only in hindsight having read the explanation.They raise some very interesting questions and real life applications, and the author seems to enjoy relating these to business situations. It really does make you consider your real life interactions and the behaviour of yourself and others, for example when your dentist tells you that you need an expensive filling, in what situation would he be exaggerating about the benefits it would bring to you? If you were seeing him for the first time, or if you had a long standing relationship?I have to admit that I do have my reservations about social science experiments. I feel they can be set up in a way to fit whatever the person conducting the experiment wants to show. (Is this being dishonest!??) My other criticism of the book is that it does become a little repetitive and most of my enjoyment came from reading those first 30 pages in the book shop.All in all an interesting read and I may well pick up Dan Ariely’s earlier books that seem to have very favourable reviews.

⭐1% are dishonest, and 98% of us will get away with what we think we can.Ariely is a highly entertaining academic looking what makes us tick and how our honesty/dishonesty can affect how we behave and interact, and more importantly how we shape and manage our systems and environments to counter act human frailty/weakness.If you have any interest in behavioral economics or human psychology this is definitely worth a read.

⭐It is written like it is straight from one of my university lectures too. Disappointed.Further this book is about the models and rationale of cheating (not lying) .

⭐The title says it all. Great research into the realities of our illusions of our own virtue.Valuable to open your eyes to the cold objective realities of the trustworthiness or otherwise of yourself and other people, and the strange and surprising, counterintuitive factors that influence it.

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