preview

The Dishonesty of Honest People (Paper Summary)

Better Essays

Dishonesty of Honest People: A theory of Self-Concept maintenance. Main idea    People think of themselves as honest. Yes, in reality dishonesty pays quite generously (give examples) The paper demonstrates that their convenience people become dishonest enough to profit but also behave honestly enough to maintain their self-concept. Why are People Dishonest?               Origins of theory date from Adam Smith/Thomas Hobbes using Homo Economicus as a base reference. Aka “Rational Man” who acts consciously and deliberately to trade off benefits and costs of dishonest acts. Within a dishonest act there is normally a balance of tradeoffs: 1. the amount that is to be gained 2. Likelihood of getting caught 3. Magnitude of …show more content…

- A person may cheat on a test because they don’t want to appear stupid - On these matrix tests, people only care about external rewards and cheat up to a threshold where they don’t get caught - People are influenced by social norms, if a person solves 3 but knows on avg that people declare 6 correctly solved ones, he/she will comply. Comment [MS8]: Cheating in the first matrix did not affect the recycle groups self-concept negatively as the magnitude of their dishonesty was well below the threshold...under the radar.. Comment [MS9]: This is not focused on the actions of others, rather its more about self preservation. Control group 1(belief 4 matrices on avg solved): No possibility to cheat: as expected Control group 2(belief 8 matrices on avg solved): No possibility to cheat: as expected Recycle group 1(belief 4 matrices on avg solved): Possibility to cheat: cheated Recycle group 2(belief 8 matrices on avg solved): Possibility to cheat: cheated When subjects had an ability to cheat, they cheated, however their level of cheating was independent of their information on the average performance of others. This argues against drive towards achievement , threshold due to external costs, or norm compliance as alternative explanations. Comment [MS10]: This could be our angle to work on!!! In my opinion I think that drive towards achievement and norm compliance could very well serve for alternative explanations to

Get Access