Dan Ariely, Professor of Psychology and Behavioural Economics, examines the mechanisms at work behind dishonest behaviour, and the implications this has for all aspects of our social and political lives.
Ariely sets our behaviors in two opposing motivations: we would like to view ourselves as honest, value-driven people, but we would also like to make as much money as possible or achieve other goals to get us ahead in life. In order to reconcile these dueling aims, we employ what he calls “cognitive flexibility”: the ability to minimize the extent of our cheating in order to still view ourselves as wonderful human beings.
Watch Ariely’s animation on: http://tiny.cc/tpfrnw
Image source: http://goo.gl/lsv94
Contemporary man is a victim of a fatal lapse of memory. Distracted by a thousand of solicitations offered by a global society, he has lost the deep sense of beauty as well as the contact with his inner resources. He has therefore impoverished his own existence, becoming a prisoner of solitude and of the desolate greyness of the metropolis, slave to breathless rhythms and to a time going by always the same way, prey of the shining vacuum of shopping malls, or even a robot roaming over the virtual paths of the internet.
That’s a very poetic and poignant comment, Fabio. What you say is very true yet I sense a little bit of desperation that isn’t necessarily the be-all and end-all of life.
Dishonesty has many faces and they have changed over the centuries. Alas, it has always been present in society. Even the Bible teaches us a stern lesson about judging others:
From Matthew 7:5
“You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”
No one is squeaky clean and we justify our actions based on judging dishonesty relative to a social scale and historic benchmarks. What is considered acceptable today may have sent you to the gallows centuries ago. When we see certain situations go unanswered then we automatically think that, perhaps, it isn’t bad enough for us to do the same. Unfortunately, peer pressure and the strain of success forces people to bend the rules to survive…some are caught, whilst others get away with it.
In the long run, history has proven that dishonesty doesn’t pay. I believe that everyone has to take a moral stand, look inwards at one’s own comportment and establish a set of personal rules that have to be adhered to, no matter what happens around us.
If you would like a schematic representation of what I see happens in the workplace regarding dishonesty, have a look at my article on the subject.
http://fall7up8.wordpress.com/2012/08/06/honesty-best-policy/
Reblogged this on ISDI Learning Corner.