What compels us to lie; Dan Ariely’s “The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone Especially Ourselves”

Saturday May 4, 2013

What compels us to lie

Reviewed by NICK WALKER
balticmedia@ymail.com

The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone Especially Ourselves
Author: Dan Ariely
Publisher: Harper

HAVE you ever lied on your CV? Yeah, right. Sure you haven’t. How about fudging the truth a bit? Was that an affirmative you just mumbled?

Well, don’t beat yourself up about it. According to Dan Ariely, a behavioural economist and popular psychologist, and the bestselling author of The Upside of Irrationality and Predictably Irrational, we generally speaking all lie sometimes. And some of us lie all the time. What is worse, and no big surprise to any urban professional in Malaysia, is that the job-hunting game provides fertile ground for duplicity on both sides.

In his latest book, Ariely examines the contradictory forces that both compel us to be dishonest and restrain us from lying.

From cheating-by-smartphone in schools to political leaders who take liberties with the truth, to the commercial shenanigans that hurt the poorest in society, cheating, lying, and compromising the truth in other ways, are inescapable components of the human condition.

Drawing on his own empirical research, and penned in the breezy accessible style of Malcolm Gladwell’s What The Dog Saw andFreakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, Ariely reveals, with remarkable candor, what knocks us off the true and straight road of honesty.If you’ve ever wondered why corporate culture is so slimy and dishonest, you’ll find thought-provoking answers here. Indeed, some of the most engrossing parts of this book are those that reveal examples Big Business’ enabling of mendacity. There are also lucid and well-signposted answers to the following: Why do some people lie even when they don’t need to? Do the odds of getting caught affect how likely we are to lie or cheat? And what is the role religious faith plays in keeping us on the straight and narrow?

One would assume that lying, like most other rational decisions, is based on a rational cost-benefit analysis. Ariely refutes this, and then demonstrates that it’s actually the irrational forces those we don’t take into account that, more often than not, determine our ethical conduct.

Ariely does this by pointing out the limitations of the traditional “Simple Model of Rational Crime”, and by reintroducing the “fudge factor” from his previous book.

In addition to addressing dishonesty in the workplace, Ariely looks at its impact on schools, relationships, and society at large. The effectiveness and otherwise of institutional and cultural safeguards against dishonesty are also explored.

What else will you find here? Why some things are easier to lie about than others. Whether or not we’re better off lying collaboratively. Discourse concerning the “slippery slope” longer-term impact of an initial transgression. The art of self-deception and the “storytelling” abilities used to rationalise them. And much more.

The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty comprises ten illuminating chapters on how unethical behaviour works in our professional, personal, and political worlds, and how it impacts us, even those souls who, in this hard-boiled nation of round-the-clock business, consider ourselves as having lofty moral standards.

Lucy Windsor, a London-based life coach and HR consultant supports the concurs with Ariely’s take on the unfortunate malleability of “the truth”. She’s worked with professionals on every rung of the corporate ladder. “Each experience is a venture into the unknown. That said, there are patterns of behaviour that have become apparent to me over a decade and a half of working in this field. One such pattern that manifests itself in several ways is the “lie” and the lie is this: “If I am myself, I will be found lacking and I will fail”.

The element of self-doubt cannot be overestimated. “The tendency therefore is to put on a professional’ mask, in the hope this will protect them from being vulnerable and give them credibility this is particularly noticeable, when individuals are under the pressure of a recruitment or development process, or other high-pressure tasks such as giving a presentation,” Windsor explains.

The problem with the “professional” mask, is that it is a bit like taking drugs it provides a false feeling of confidence, but at the same time, strips us of the ability to properly connect with those around you.

Windsor adds: “When we don the professional mask’, we go through the motions of asking questions, but without really listening to the answers, because we have already made up our minds.” In others words, there is much more than an ethical dimension to be considered we truly are hard-wired in modern-working society to to put it charitably “fake it”.

It’s almost a survival instinct in the primeval jungle of the 21st century office.

However, all is not lost for us perennially fibbing mortals. Ariely also identifies what keeps us honest, and lights up paths for us to attain higher ethical standards. And these incur less risk than we might fear, by actually not bending truth. Honesty is the best policy, as the old adage goes. Ariely writes persuasively why this is so, and on many levels. An outstanding follow-up to 2010’s The Upside of Irrationality andPredictably Irrational.