Why we think it's OK to cheat and steal (sometimes)

Why you should listen to him: Despite our best efforts, bad or inexplicable decisions are as inevitable as death and taxes and the grocery store running out of your favorite flavor of ice cream. They're also just as predictable. Why, for instance, are we convinced that "sizing up" at our favorite burger joint is a good idea, even when we're not that hungry? Why are our phone lists cluttered with numbers we never call? Dan Ariely, behavioral economist, has based his career on figuring out the answers to these questions, and in his bestselling book Predictably Irrational (which will be re-released in expanded form in May 2009), he describes many unorthodox and often downright odd experiments used in the quest to answer this question.

Ariely has long been fascinated with how emotional states, moral codes and peer pressure affect our ability to make rational and often extremely important decisions in our daily lives -- across a spectrum of our interests, from economic choices (how should I invest?) to personal (who should I marry?). At Duke, he's aligned with three departments (business, economics and cognitive neuroscience); he's also a visiting professor in MIT's Program in Media Arts and Sciences and a founding member of the Center for Advanced Hindsight. His hope that studying and understanding the decision-making process can help people lead better, more sensible daily lives.
"If you want to know why you always buy a bigger television than you intended, or why you think it's perfectly fine to spend a few dollars on a cup of coffee at Starbucks, or why people feel better after taking a 50-cent aspirin but continue to complain of a throbbing skull when they're told the pill they took just cost one penny, Ariely has the answer." Daniel Gross, Newsweek

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"It seems there are two forces at work. One is the individual's propensity to bend his moral code, to justify advantageous behavior that he knows is "wrong". M. Ariely points out that certain cues can strengthen or loosen this propensity, for e.g., loosening via the reward be an abstraction (tokens or pencils vs money), or strengthening by virtue of posting a reminder of morality (for e.g. agreeing to an ethics code).

The second (related) element, that he hints at with the Carnegie Mellon experiment, is the flexibility or shifting of one's moral lattice structure in a group setting, more commonly known as the "everyone's doing it..." justification (or it's sibling effect, where it's not the group that's the powerful force but the leader/idol/hero figure, etc.). It would be interesting to see the relative strength of one versus the other - what happens when you're reminded of your moral code in an environment where you know everyone else is cheating. My guess is that the second trumps the first, which is why mob mentality is so powerful and prevalent. I would also attribute the wholesale irresponsibility in the stock market to this second element, rather than the first." Farhad Farzaneh

"When you let somebody be dishonest, you are setting him up to become physically ill and unhappy." "When you let a person give nothing for something, you are factually encouraging crime." L. Ron Hubbard

"Someone who thinks the world is always cheating him is right. He is missing that wonderful feeling of trust in someone or something." Eric Hoffer

"I would prefer even to fail with honor than to win by cheating" Sophocles

"It is impossible for a man to be cheated by anyone but himself." Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something." Henry David Thoreau

"Integrity is not a conditional word. It doesn't blow in the wind or change with the weather. It is your inner image of yourself, and if you look in there and see a man who won't cheat, then you know he never will." John D. MacDonald