Dan Ariely: Lying and Cheating

Here's a link to a talk on cheating given by Dan Ariely

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUdsTizSxSI

In this talk Dan Ariely describes an experiment on cheating. Two groups of people are offered the same sun glasses, but one of the group is told that these sun glasses are fake. They are then told to test and verify if these fake sun glasses look and feel good, after which they are told to conduct a test. The test is designed in a way that cheating is easier. The guys who know that they are wearing genuine sun glasses cheat less compared to the guys who were wearing fake sun glasses. Somehow the behavioral cheating required to wear fake sun glasses spilled into a test which had nothing to do with sun glasses. Cheating is therefore not domain specific.

• If you want to lower someone's moral standard, then make him cheat in things which he wouldn't morally object to and wait for the moral depravity to lower his yard stick.
• Relationship and Cheating: If you are lying and cheating about something not important than that lying and cheating could easily spill into other areas which would have serious consequences.