The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty

2. Bernard Nijstad, Wolfgang Stroebe, and Hein F. M. Lodewijkx, “The Illusion of Group Productivity: A Reduction of Failures Explanation,” European Journal of Social Psychology (2006).

3. ADA Council on Scientific Affairs, “Direct and Indirect Restorative Materials,” The Journal of the American Dental Association (2003).

Chapter 10. A Semioptimistic Ending: People Don’t Cheat Enough!

1. Montpelier [Vermont] Argus & Patriot, March 6, 1873.

OTHER BOOKS BY DAN ARIELY

The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected

Benefits of Defying Logic

Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces

That Shape Our Decisions

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THE (HONEST) TRUTH ABOUT DISHONESTY. © Dan Ariely 2012. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks.

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* The flood of corporate scandals that continued from that point on very clearly answered this question.

* For the full references to all the materials used in each chapter, and for related readings, see the Bibliography and Additional Readings at the back of the book.

* Beyond exploring the topic of dishonesty, this book is fundamentally about rationality and irrationality. And although dishonesty is fascinating and important in human endeavors its own right, it is also important to keep in mind that it is but a single component of our interesting and intricate human nature.

* Readers of Predictably Irrational might recognize some of the material presented in this chapter and in chapter 2, “Fun with the Fudge Factor.”

* X stands for the number of questions that the participants claimed to have solved correctly.

* One important question about the usage of moral reminders is whether over time people will get used to signing such honor codes, causing such reminders to lose their effectiveness. That is why I think that the right approach is to ask people to write their own version of the honor code—that way it will be difficult to sign without thinking about morality, and more ethical behavior should follow.

* As it turned out, I was audited by the IRS a few years later, and it was a long, painful but very interesting experience. I don’t think it was related to this meeting.

* I suspect that for people who actively dislike the government or insurance companies, the effect would still hold, though it might be mitigated to some degree—something worth testing in the future.

* Think about all the cases in which people ask for advice about how to behave in embarrassing situations—not for themselves but for a “friend.”

* When I was a teenager, a magnesium flare exploded next to me. I suffered massive third-degree burns and underwent many operations and treatments over the subsequent years. For more details, see my previous books.

* Perhaps the most telling evidence for the pharma industry’s influence is the fact that my insider for this interview insisted that I keep his name confidential to avoid being blacklisted by pharma.