Dan Ariely On Why We’re All A Little Dishonest – And What To Do About It

Forbes:

In a fast-moving, complex society, you simply can’t master every task. But when you pay people for advice – whether they’re your doctor, your mechanic, or your financial adviser – you need to be able to trust what they’re saying. “As we become more interdependent and more specialized,” says Dan Ariely, author of The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty, “trust becomes more valuable.”

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“The good news is most people are not psychopaths,” says Ariely, a professor at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business (where I also teach). But the bad news is that “everyone has the capacity to behave badly.” It turns out that most people are perfectly willing to cheat a little, but very few will cheat a lot. “It’s what we call the fudge factor – you’ll add two extra receipts to your tax return [for deductions], but you can’t do 20. There’s a point at which it feels wrong.”

Read the whole story: Forbes