Dan Ariely's Blog, page 42

Liars in Literature

Sometimes people ask me what I like to read. Sadly, I don’t have a lot of time to read non-work related things, but here are a few of my favorite lie- and liar-based texts!

 

1)   The complete works of Sigmund Freud.

 

A list of the best books related to human nature, lying, and cheating would be nowhere without Freud and the explanatory power of rationalization. I know I should choose just one of them, but I’m not at home and can’t look through my books, and it’s been so long since I’ve read them, and I think I lost my notes…

 

2)   Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) by Jerome K Jerome.

 

My abiding love for this particular book has to do with many things—its comical style has aged well these last 100 plus years. Moreover, Jerome nicely captures our tendency toward dishonesty; we’re all a little dishonest, but only inasmuch as we can justify to ourselves:

“I knew a young man once, he was a most conscientious fellow and, when he took to fly-fishing, he determined never to exaggerate his hauls by more than twenty-five per cent… “But I will not lie any more than that, because it is sinful to lie.””

 

3)   A Million Little Pieces by James Frey.

 

A monument of embellishment, this highly fictionalized nonfiction account of Frey’s life offers a fresh take on the stories we tell to and about ourselves, that is, he shows us that people don’t just lie to make themselves look better. Where most people would elide events, Frey makes them more violent and grotesque. But of course, he had a whole lot to gain from doing so.

 

4)   How to Lie with Statistics by Darrell Huff.

 

I think it’s important to acknowledge that the scientific process, though we often look to it as revealing the truth about the things around us, is also full of problems. Duff sets about showing, in highly comedic fashion, how to skew a sample population, alter graphs to belie findings, disguise the actual nature of the claim, and so on.

 

5)   White Coat, Black Hat: Adventures on the Dark Side of Medicine by Carl Elliott.

 

Conflicts of interest, which are everywhere, underlie a lot of unintentionally dishonest behavior. This book takes a good, long look at the ways they bedevil medicine and create an amazing array of problems for everyone involved – with a very high cost for patients and society.

 

6)    The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

 

Huck begins his narrative with the nature of lying and authorship: “There was things which he [Mark Twain] stretched, but mainly he told the truth.  That is nothing.  I never seen anybody but lied one time or another…” We can learn a lot watching Huck navigate the tricky of nature of truth and deception as he navigates the Mississippi, which is, incidentally, an adventure he inaugurates by faking his own death.

 

Happy reading!

New ATD: We’re Only Fooling Ourselves

Arming the Donkeys this week features Mike Norton of Harvard Business School. Mike and I discuss research on self-deception, and explore some of the ways in which we justify morally questionable behavior to ourselves — as well as some of the the psychological costs and benefits of this self-deception.

Here’s the link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/were-only-fooling-ourselves/id420535283?i=126244443&mt=2

Ask Ariely: On whistleblowing, Zipcars, and the rosy effect of the unexplored

Here’s my Q&A column from the WSJ this week — and if you have any questions for me, just email them to AskAriely@wsj.com.

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Dear Dan,

I was the whistleblower for a very large corporate disaster. Since the whistleblowing, I have been shocked at the vitriol and social exclusion I have suffered as a result of speaking the truth. What is it about whistleblowers that makes society want to exclude them? Any insights and guidance would be most welcome.

—Wendy

From what I understand, the backlash you are experiencing is very common among whistleblowers.

In thinking about your issue, I reflected on why I want my kids (ages 10 and 6) to solve their problems themselves, without involving higher authorities (their parents). Tattling is considered very negative behavior. Of course, sometimes my kids have legitimate claims that require an intervention from the “authorities,” but my negative reaction to tattling suggests that I’m willing to accept some violations of justice in order to have the problems solved internally.

Perhaps the friends of whistleblowers see them as not truly part of the social circle, since they’ve shown willingness to seek external authorities when conflicts emerge. Maybe your social exclusion is due to a belief that when problems emerge in the future, you will again look for an external authority? If you were Tom Sawyer, you could cut your hand and mix your blood with that of your friends to symbolize your connection, but given that this might not work for your age group, perhaps you need to find a related ritual that will show your commitment to the social group.

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Dear Dan,

I live in a quasi-urban area near Washington, D.C., don’t own a car and take the metro to work. Near my home is a fleet of Zipcars (a car-sharing system starting at $8 an hour, including gas, insurance and up to 180 miles of driving in a day). If I bought a car, the monthly costs alone (insurance, parking) would amount to about $200; then there’s the purchase of the car, gas and tolls. For that money I could regularly rent Zipcars.

So why don’t I? I could go to different restaurants and entertainment. But each time I think of doing this, I ask myself whether I want to spend the extra money to rent the car and usually decide against it.

This issue comes up the most with groceries. There’s a fantastic supermarket a quick drive away that sells much better and cheaper produce than my local store. In the end, I feel like I’m choosing between (1) overpaying at my local store and feeling cheated and (2) going to the better store but also feeling cheated because I spent $30 on a Zipcar to save that same amount on groceries. What do you suggest?

—Michal

What you’re experiencing is a conflict between your enjoyment of a better supermarket and your cost-benefit analysis. What’s interesting is that if you bought a car, you’d spend much more money overall, but on any given week you wouldn’t feel the pain of paying to get to the supermarket. Because a car can be used for so many different purposes, no single one will feel like the reason for the car, and you’d only focus on the marginal cost of driving a few extra miles, despite the car’s overall expense and inefficiency.

Instead, you could try calling Zipcar and offering to pay them in advance for three hours of car use four times a month for a year. This way you wouldn’t undergo a cost-benefit calculus for every visit to the supermarket.

And if you can’t convince Zipcar to do this, how about putting the money you’re saving by not having a car into a “Zipcar” bank account, and linking the Zipcar use to the money you’re saving? And to make sure you use this money for the Zipcar, commit to giving whatever’s left in that account at the end of the year to a charity you hate.

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Dear Dan,

A few weeks ago you told us that in romantic encounters, the heart grows fonder when we know less about a potential mate. Does it also work for job applicants? Do we like people more when they’re hired from the outside rather than from within?

—John

Plenty of lessons from romantic love apply to the rest of our lives, and you’re correct that this is one of them. There’s some evidence showing that CEOs hired from the outside get paid more than those from the inside and that they don’t do as well. I suspect that the reason for this is the same heightened expectations that come with lack of knowledge. The question, of course, is how to combat our natural tendency to be overly optimistic about people we don’t know very well—both romantically and professionally.

 

See the original article in the Wall Street Journal here.

New ATD: Cultures of Corruption

Arming the Donkeys this week features Ray Fisman of the Columbia Business School. Ray and I discuss his research on political corruption and parking fines, and wonder how likely U.N. representatives are to use their diplomatic immunity to avoid paying these fines themselves.

Here’s the link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/cultures-of-corruption/id420535283?i=125670479&mt=2

The Encyclopedia of Ethical Failure…

Wondering whether you can ask someone to give you a PhD in exchange for a kickback? Curious whether you can get away with stuffing ballot boxes? Allow me to introduce you to the Encyclopedia of Ethical Failure. Every couple years the Department of Defense publishes the Encyclopedia (Word doc), which is likely the most sarcastic government document out there. Interestingly, golf and taxes seem to turn up a lot.

Of course, ethics for U.S. government employees and military includes a number of rules that most citizens don’t have to abide by, such as not endorsing candidates for office while in uniform. However, it doesn’t take a law degree to recognize the problems with many of these incidents. Here’s a tiny sample:

- “For a period of several years, two top executives at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center had an astonishing work record—they took nearly no vacation time at all. The reason, investigators soon discovered, was that the executives had been taking “religious compensatory time” instead. Curiously, the executives’ absences seldom fell on any traditionally observed religious holidays. Instead, investigators found that the pair’s so-called religious observances took place on days when they had medical appointments, sightseeing trips, and golf tournaments. Asked whether golf tournaments could be considered religious observances, one executive replied, “They could be for some people.”

- A Forest Service employee decided that while she was fulfilling payments for the Service using government checks, she would write a couple to her boyfriend, who had contracted with the Forest Service once upon a time. The checks she wrote under the guise of payment for firefighting services totaled over $600,000, and apparently went to pay for general expenses and, fittingly, for gambling.

- And in the quintessential story of government corruption, two VA employees are in jail for accepting more than $100,000 in kickbacks for red tape. Yes, actual red-colored tape.

The Encyclopedia shows not only that cheating (in all its myriad forms) is wrong, but also that it carries substantial repercussions; the size of the document serves as an indication that getting caught is fairly probable. The question I have is whether over time readers of the Encyclopedia will remember the instances as examples of what people do, forget where these examples came from, and perhaps start thinking of them more as clever and daring schemes than cautionary tales….

New ATD: License to Cheat

Arming the Donkeys this week features Nina Mazar, assistant professor of marketing at the University of Toronto. Nina and I speak about her research on psychological licensing, or how we may be more likely to cheat after doing something good.

Here’s the link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/license-to-cheat/id420535283?i=125252000

Ask Ariely: On Moving, Eating and Decision Making

Here’s my Q&A column from the WSJ this week — and if you have any questions for me, just email them to AskAriely@wsj.com.

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Dear Dan,

My son has been in New York since he was 18, when he started attending The Cooper Union as an art student. Now he is 35 and afraid to leave NYC to move West. He hasn’t made the moves he would need to further his career in photography. He has had many successes—but not financial ones. We’ve offered him time here on the West Coast to develop his art (and hopefully a career). He doesn’t like living in NYC and says he would love to move west, but people in New York seem to believe that it is the only place to get a job. Is there any advice or constructive approach you can offer to make his options clearer?

—Barbara

First, it’s delightful that you want your son to move closer to you rather than stay on the other coast, and I am sure that he feels the same.

I suspect your son is suffering from two decision biases. One, the status quo bias, has to do with our tendency to take our current situation as our reference point and to see any change as negative (or at least difficult) and with a high potential for regret. The second, the unchangeability bias, is the idea that when we face large decisions that seem to be immutable (getting married, having kids, moving to a distant place), the permanence of these decisions makes them seem even larger and more frightening. With these two biases combined, it’s only natural that your son is apprehensive about moving West.

Now, if you frame the move as “a trial for just a few months,” this would change your son’s status quo (he would still think of himself as a New Yorker, only temporarily trying out the West Coast), and it wouldn’t seem like a decision that’s so tough to change. Over time, he’ll most likely start feeling at home, get used to the new status quo, and not want to return to New York.

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Hi Dan,

Let’s say you’re very hungry and you plan to eat two sandwiches. One is very delicious and the other isn’t as good. Which one should you eat first?

—Pablo

One of my college friends had kids many years before anyone else in our group was even considering children, and he used to give the following advice (mostly unsolicited): “Think,” he used to say, “about how you like to eat. There are some people who like to eat reasonable food three times daily, while others would prefer to save their money and eat mediocre food most of the time but occasionally have an amazing meal.

“If you’re one of the second type, go ahead and have kids, because life with kids isn’t all that fun for the most part, but from time to time they bring incredible joy. And if you identify with the first type, you may want to rethink the kids idea.”

Now, I am not sure that this metaphor bodes well for kids, but in terms of food it certainly works. As a thought experiment, it asks whether you prefer to focus on the maximum amount of pleasure in any given experience or the average pleasure.

In the first case, you should eat the better sandwich first so that the height of your initial joy comes from the combination of your hunger and the superior quality of the sandwich. (As Cervantes wrote in “Don Quixote,” “Hunger is the best sauce in the world.”) Of course, you will sacrifice pleasure at the end of your experience. On the other hand, if you’re aiming for a consistent experience, eat the so-so sandwich first. With this method, the initial joy will be lower, but the end of the experience won’t be as much of a contrast.

Personally, I prefer to focus on the most joyful part of the experience and eat the best sandwich first, ignoring folk wisdom to “save the best for last.” Plus, this way I might be less hungry by the time I get to the so-so sandwich and may eat a bit less.

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Dear Dan,

Given all your research on decision making, do you now find yourself making better decisions?

 —Oded

Maybe, possibly, sometimes. I suspect that my gut intuition hasn’t improved much with my knowledge about bad decision-making. On the other hand, when I get to carefully consider my decisions, I think I’m able to avoid some of the decision traps that I study. I should also point out that much of my research starts with observations of my own irrationalities—so, without my own mistakes, I might have to look for a different career.

See the original article in the Wall Street Journal here.

New ATD: Gluttons for Self-Punishment

Arming the Donkeys this week features Yoel Inbar, assistant professor of social psychology at Tilburg University. Yoel and I speak about how we sometimes punish ourselves when we feel guilty about things we’ve done, and how this behavior may not be the healthiest solution to our problems.

Here’s the link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/gluttons-for-self-punishment/id420535283?i=124887958

On Aging Gracefully.

Somewhat recently I’ve noticed that I’m losing a bit of hair. I say somewhat recently because as many of us do with discoveries of this nature, we put off fully accepting them for as long as possible. (In fact, not long ago, I spent several months with bad vision because I wanted to delay getting glasses until after I turned 45.)

I’ve been asking people’s advice about my hair situation, and many tell me to conceal the change for as long as possible until baldness, should it come to that, becomes inevitable. This seemed reasonable enough, but then I came across a study that suggested the opposite might be a better idea. The study showed that men with shaved heads are thought to be more dominant than men of similar stature and looks with full heads of hair. In fact, when people viewed photos of men whose hair had been digitally shaved, they reported that the men were taller, stronger, and more dominant than the unaltered photos where the men had hair. While I don’t think I’m ready to shave my head just yet, I’m sure I wouldn’t mind the extra height, imaginary or not.

The moral of the story is that we should always question prevailing opinion. And maybe it’s best to think of aging as Mark Twain did: “Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”

One thing is certain though: never, ever attempt a comb-over.

New ATD: Why Willpower Doesn’t Work

This week, the Arming the Donkeys podcast features Roy Baumeister, professor of psychology at Florida State University. Roy and I speak about ego depletion, and how the longer we resist temptation, the more likely we are to give in later.

Here’s the link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/why-willpower-doesnt-work/id420535283?i=123767041