The Truth about Lying
September 15, 2012
timothywstanley@me.com
Are you more honest than a banker? Under what circumstances would you lie, or cheat, and what effect does your deception have on society at large? Dan Ariely, one of the world's leading voices on human motivation and behaviour is the latest big thinker to get the RSA Animate treatment.
It's all about rationalisation. If we can rationalize to a higher degree​, we will be able to cheat more and think of ourselves as good people. And if we can rationalize less we would be more honest... We went to UCLA in Los Angeles and we asked about five hundred students to try and recall the Ten Commandments. But after trying to recall the Ten Commandments, when we gave them the same opportunity to be dishonest nobody was dishonest. In fact, when we take self declared atheists and we ask them to swear on the bible and give them the chance to cheat they don't cheat. So this suggests that there is something about reminders that the moment we think about morality, even if it's not our own moral code, all of a sudden we are kind of supervising ourselves to a higher degree.
http://www.youtube.com/user/theRSAorg