6 factors that determine a person’s tendency to cheat

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An employee takes a stack of paper away from work. The doctor convinces the patient that he needs an expensive procedure because he recently bought a machine to perform it. The lawyer exaggerates the time he spent on solving a problem that was paid by the hour. The golfer gently pushes the golf club into a better position.

Such examples of dishonest behavior are ubiquitous in everyday life, and these acts are committed not by thieves or inveterate liars, but by ordinary people. The same as you and me.

Professor of psychology and behavioral economics Dan Ariely in his book “The whole truth is about lies. Why and how we deceive” analyzed the reasons why this happens.

Below we present six important factors that can cause any person to act less than honestly or completely dishonestly.

1. The opportunity to justify yourself to yourself

It would seem that the only reasons for deception are obtaining benefits and the opportunity to avoid any sanctions. In other words, the only thing that keeps us from cheating in everyday life is the fear of punishment.

If a person is sure that the deception will not be revealed and that no bad consequences will arise, he will definitely lie. And the greater the benefit, the more lies.

This sounds logical, but in life it happens differently. To test what makes people cheat, Ariely conducted a series of experiments. He recruited a group of students and gave them sheets of matrices, in each of which they had to find a pair of numbers that added up to 10.

The task was given five minutes to complete, and for each correctly solved task the participant received 50 cents.

To begin with, scientists have found that in the allotted time an ordinary person can master on average only about four matrices. They then began changing the experimental conditions to find out what would cause students to cheat in an attempt to increase their rewards.

Scientists have tested how people’s behavior will change if the fear of being caught disappears. After completing the test, the experimenter asked the participants to destroy the form in the shredder without showing it to him, and simply tell him how many problems the student solved.

The average immediately jumped to six!

Obviously, the students slightly exaggerated their results in order to get more money.

Then Ariely decided to check whether this was only related to benefits, and increased the amount of the reward. He assigned larger or smaller amounts to different groups of students, ranging from 25 cents to $10 per matrix.

It would seem that in the group with the highest reward, the level of lying should have skyrocketed, especially since no one checked the results. But that did not happen.

Regardless of the promised amount, students added the same two extra matrices to their results. Moreover, the level of fraud in the highest paid group was even lower than in the rest.

Ariely concluded that it is not the size of the reward that pushes people to cheat. The professor suggested that, first of all, it is important for a person to maintain a sense of his own “integrity” – to justify his actions to himself and continue to consider himself honest and good.

And doing this when you get paid $10 for something you didn’t actually do is much more difficult than when you get a reward of just 25 or 50 cents.

Dan Ariely

Economist, professor of psychology, specialist in behavioral economics.

The sense of morality of our actions is related to the amount of cheating we feel comfortable with. Essentially, we cheat only to the extent that allows us to maintain a view of ourselves as a relatively honest person.

Simply put, people want to feel good about themselves. If lying does not violate this feeling, the person will deceive. If self-image is under threat, he will refrain from lying.

2. The ability to isolate yourself from deception

It is much easier to lie if there is some distance between the person and the illegal action.

For example, people can easily take a pack of paper worth 500 rubles from work, but they would never steal such a bill lying on someone else’s desk or in some other place.

Taking money is stealing. And paper… well, it’s just paper, the company has a lot of it.

The value of the distance was confirmed in the same matrix experiment. When for each matrix participants began to receive not dollars and cents, but tokens, which could then be exchanged for money, the level of lying doubled.

Just one extra step made it easy for people to fool experimenters.

Another clear example is cheating while playing golf. In a series of experiments, Ariely found that few people are ready to take the ball in their hand and move it to a new, more advantageous position.

But many more players are capable of quietly kicking him with a shoe. If a club is involved – an object that is not related to the body at all (although it is controlled by it), then the percentage of cheating golfers simply soars.

Distance allows a person to isolate himself from the act of lying and feel, in principle, honest.

Bureaucracy, online banking, using the Internet – all this increases the chances of lying and stealing, but at the same time considering oneself good and correct.

3. Fatigue

Modern man is faced with many tasks and problems every day, and cognitive load does not have the best effect on our moral qualities and ability to make rational and correct decisions. And this applies to any action, from choosing food to moral dilemmas.

For example, in one experiment Scientists decided to test how mental stress would affect people’s ability to make the right choices.

The participants were divided into two groups. Some were asked to remember a two-digit number, others a seven-digit number. To receive payment, subjects had to go to another room and tell the experimenter the correct numbers.

On the way, they came across a cart with chocolate cake and fruit. The attendant said that a person could choose a delicacy to his liking, and after he named the correct numbers in the next room, he could receive it.

Most people who remembered a seven-digit number preferred cake, while those who remembered only two numbers preferred fruit.

Cognitive fatigue makes us give in to impulsive impulses. And lies are no exception.

Ariely tested this during the already familiar matrix test. After a challenging cognitive task, people reported solving more matrices. In other words, they did not have enough willpower to resist temptation.

So, if a person faces the dilemma of “to lie or not to lie” at the end of a hard day, he is more likely to succumb to temptation.

4. Following social norms

Since humans are a very social species, social norms greatly influence whether a person will deceive and cheat or not.

In one of Ariely’s matrix experiments, a decoy was added to the group of participants who actually solved problems. This was a student who absolutely blatantly lied that he had completed all 20 matrices, and then took all the money due for it and left the office with impunity.

After that, the rest of the students, who, due to human capabilities, did not overcome more than 7 matrices, assigned themselves as many as 15! On average, 8 more than those who decided honestly.

Of course, it could also turn out that the obvious liar simply demonstrated to the students the impunity of such an act, and did not at all become an example of a social norm.

To test this, Ariely conducted another experiment. Now, before the test began, the dummy participant simply publicly asked the experimenter: “It turns out that I can lie that I solved more matrices than I actually did and take all the money?” To which I received the answer: “You can do whatever you see fit.”

This dialogue proved to others that there would be no sanctions for deception, which means they could safely lie outright. However, as a result, the participants attributed to themselves only three extra matrices, and not at all 8, as in the case of the blatant liar.

Thus, the example of other people greatly influences whether a person will ultimately cheat or not. Consciously or not, the thought “Everyone does this – it’s normal” can persuade even naturally honest people to lie.

5. Creativity

In one research Scientists collected 12 people who lied on a regular basis and checked whether they had any brain characteristics.

It turned out that liars had less gray matter (nerve cell bodies) in the prefrontal cortex, an area that, among other functions, is responsible for moral judgment. At the same time, they had significantly more white matter—the myelin-covered “tails” of neurons that provide communication between brain cells.

Scientists have suggested that liars are able to build more connections between different memories and ideas, which means it is easier for them to interpret events in a favorable light and rationalize dishonest actions.

To test this theory, Ariely conducted a new experiment. First, he assessed the participants’ creativity using several criteria, and then asked the subjects to complete the task on the computer.

A square appeared on the screen, divided into two triangles by a diagonal line. Inside this figure, 20 dots lit up in a random order. Then they disappeared, and two answer buttons appeared on the display: “More on the right” and “More on the left.”

Participants had to indicate on which side they saw more dots. Sometimes it was obvious: elements were grouped in one part of the screen. But sometimes the points were distributed fairly evenly, so that it was not easy to determine which option was correct.

At the same time, participants were told that for each answer “More on the right” they would receive 5 cents, and for each answer “More on the left” they would receive only 0.5 cents. And no matter how correct the decision turns out to be, the money will be given in any case.

The results of the task revealed that people with the highest scores on creativity cheated more often, especially in conditions of uncertainty – when it was impossible to say with certainty how many dots were on the right and left.

Dan Ariely

The link between creativity and dishonesty is that we tell ourselves stories that we are doing the right thing (even when in practice we are not). The more creative we are, the easier it is for us to come up with a good story to justify our selfish interests.

Of course, this does not mean that all creative people are necessarily dishonest. But when creativity is faced with uncertainty – the possibility of broadly interpreting events, it is much easier to justify one’s unseemly behavior.

6. Lack of supervision

It is not at all surprising that observation makes people refrain from lying. The interesting thing is that to create such an impression, a living person or a video camera is not necessary – a simple sensation is enough.

In one experiment, a notice was posted in the kitchen of the psychology department at Newcastle University. It indicated that teachers and staff could pour themselves tea, coffee and milk for a reasonable fee. It was proposed to put the money in a box next to the kettle.

The ad was supplemented with pictures, and they changed periodically. Half the time there were flowers there, the rest of the time there were images of eyes looking directly at the visitor.

During periods when there were eyes on the ad, three times as much money was found in the box. Even a simple feeling was enough to make people act honestly.

In his experiments, Ariely found that supervision from other people reduces the level of lying to zero.

When students worked with matrices in pairs, where one watched the other as they worked, there was no cheating at all. Even though the forms were destroyed in the same way as in previous versions of the experiments, and people could exaggerate their results and get more money, they were as honest as possible.

Unfortunately, this only works with strangers. When the experimenters allowed the students to get acquainted before the test, the participants began to cheat again. The newly made “friends” boldly added one extra matrix to themselves, without agreeing on it.

Moreover, when the reward of both participants depended on the test results, people began to lie with a vengeance. Ariely called this “altruistic fraud” – it is easier to deceive and feel good if not only the liar himself, but also someone else benefits from it.

Thus, other people can both help us remain honest and push us to act dishonestly.