Summation:
According to Dan Ariely, a behavioral economist, most people will lie/cheat if it only has a small gain. Too much of a gain will prick our conscience and remind us not to lie. His article "Why We Lie" is about how the average person will always take the lie/cheat, as long as it's not too big of a gain (1).Dan Ariely performed a series of tests on unsuspecting people. They were each given a series of math problems and told to solve them. There was a control group that solved about 4 problems every 5 minutes (Ariely, par. 7). With another group, after they finished the problems, they would place the math problems in a shredder, with no evidence, they would then tell someone how many problems they solved in order to collect their reward, this group claimed to solve 6 problems (Ariely, par. 7).
This goes on to support his reasoning that if there's a small benefit involved, then it doesn't grate on our conscience as much, and so we can talk ourselves into lying/cheating. However, once the stakes are higher, it seems like too much to most people and we can't do it. For example, when the people in another group were offered 10 dollars per problem, most of them were truthful about how many were solved because it was too big of a cheat, they couldn't do it and still feel like a good person (Ariely, par. 8).
There may be those precious few who say they solved an unrealistic amount to get the reward and the few that won't even think of lying. but most people will take that small cheat because it's just one time, or just a few dollars (Ariely, par. 4).
I replied to Andrea F's blog.
I replied to Makayla's blog.
Paraphrasing paragraph 10:
Realizing that now and then almost everybody cheats, it's now time to figure out what makes people do it, whether for more or less.Quotation:
Behavioral Economist Dan Ariely states "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." (Ariely, par. 26).I chose this quote because it was a really good way to end off the essay, I feel like it does a good job of summarizing what Dan Ariely is trying to point out in his essay, and it leaves you with an example that you can relate to. It's also a good example of deciding what your audience is like and would relate to. In this case, you can guess that he assumed most people have a pesky neighbor to deal with.
Citations:
(1). Ariely, Dan. "Why We Lie." The Bedford Reader 12th (2014): 440-46. Print.
