The honest truth about dishonesty
by Dan Ariely · first published 2012
36% recommend64% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Accessible look at why people cheat and rationalize, drawing on behavioral experiments to explain everyday dishonesty and how normal pressures shape ethical behavior.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
The author, a behavioral economist challenges our preconceptions about dishonesty; we all cheat, whether it is copying a paper in the classroom, or white lies on our expense accounts. He explores how unethical behavior works in the personal, professional, and political worlds, and how it affects all of use, even as we think of ourselves as having high moral standards. He explores the question of dishonesty from Washington to Wall Street, and the classroom to the workplace, to examine why cheating is so prevalent and what can be done to prevent it.
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…games was so horrible that I have games purchased on my system that I will not play. I should probably ask steam for a refund. If you want an interesting book to read, I recommend Dan Ariely's "The honest truth about dishonesty". In particular, license agreements seem to work like disclosure he mentions. The way it works is that there is a veneer of justification that allows for all sorts of unethical behavior.
on “Epic Games Launcher appears to collect Steam friends and play history” ↗I learned a lot reading the book "the honest truth about dishonesty" by dan ariely. He did a whole bunch of really interesting experiments, like self-reporting how many you got wrong on a test before it is fed into a shredder and similar. fascinating book. How many…
on “A non-moral dilemma about cheating, but it brings up some points (2019)” ↗The Honest Truth About Dishonesty - Dan Ariely. Read all his books and papers, for that matter. Thinking, Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman I also liked Jonah Lehrer's Imagine, a book about creativity. If you're into programming, I recommend…
on “Ask HN: Summer reading” ↗…Some Don't by Nate Silver published September 27, 2012 Weaves together baseball, earthquakes, the weather, poker, and terrorism. Chapter 7 is the best description of Bayes theoreom I've ever read. The Honest Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone---Especially Ourselves by Dan Ariely published June 5, 2012 The third Ariely book, and just as fun. Would be ranked #1 except it's essential the same formula as his prior two gems.…
on “Ask HN: Best books you read in 2012” ↗…while doing them, they just need to be shown that someone can see and they'll stop. (This should work on all but the small fraction of people who will steal whatever you do - again, see [1]!) [1] "The honest truth about dishonesty", Dan Ariely http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0007477333
on “Here's how I deal with users who steal” ↗…circumstances. Not exceptional circumstances, but normal pressures from management and colleagues. Dan Ariely wrote a good book that tries to explain some of the mechanics: http://danariely.com/tag/the-honest-truth-about-dishonesty/
on “Verizon to Buy AOL for $4.4B” ↗You should read "the honest truth about dishonesty" by dan ariely where scientific studies of conflicts of interest found folks fall for this stuff unconsciously and repeatably.
on “McKinsey Advised Johnson and Johnson on Increasing Opioid Sales” ↗I enjoyed reading the book "the honest truth about dishonesty" by Dan Ariely. The section on how pharmaceutical companies work with doctors was eye opening. It is relatively easy to manipulate even a very honest person's loyalty. (I'm not saying you are even…
on “DRM Broke Its Promise” ↗I found the book "the honest truth about dishonesty" by Dan Ariely very illuminating as to how dishonesty works, how it survives and when it goes away. I suspect this article has done a good job of shining a spotlight on a situation where accountability…
on “California Public Utilities Commission fired director who exposed missing $200M” ↗It sounds like this has been largely debunked, based on the research cited in The Honest Truth about Dishonesty https://www.amazon.com/Honest-Truth-About-Dishonesty-Everyon...
on “Germany: 'Colossal' cyberattack knocks out Funke news group” ↗…that conclusion. But they were happy to lie about it elsewhere. Compare the discussion at https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2021/08/19/a-scandal-... : > Ariely is the author of the 2012 book, “The Honest Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone—Especially Ourselves.” A quick google search finds him featured in a recent Freakonomics radio show called, “Is Everybody Cheating These Days?”, and a 2020 NPR segment in which…
on “A Big Study About Honesty Turns Out to Be Based on Fake Data” ↗Retroactively justifying things is what we always do. Here's an excerpt from Dan Ariely's "The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty": > The experience taught me that sometimes (perhaps often) we don't make choices based on our explicit preferences. Instead, we have a gut feeling about what we want, and we go through a process…
on “Git koans” ↗Dan Ariely (the "Predictably Irrational" author) also wrote "The Honest Truth about Dishonesty". There were studies there that showed cheating is a slippery slope. Once you cheat with something small, you're more likely to cheat again about something bigger.
on “CEOs Who Cheat in Bedroom Will Cheat in Boardroom: Study” ↗…books I own, I'm afraid I can't easily narrow it down further. (I own all three as audiobooks, and I recall Simon Jones reading it, but it turns out he read all three.) • Predictably Irrational • The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty • The Upside of Irrationality
on “New academic journal only publishes 'unsurprising' research rejected by others” ↗…cases which show that the notion of utility is not so easy to capture using the standard "narrowly self-interested economic agents" world view. It requires a lot of subjective interpretation. 3. The Honest Truth about Dishonesty (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Honest_Truth_about_Dishone...). Shows how contextually dependent utility (if it is at all quantifiable) can be. 4. The body of work around the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma:…
on “Launch HN: Yotta Savings (YC S20) – Behavioral psychology to help people save” ↗