Ariely's The Honest Truth About Dishonesty By Dan Ariely

In Dan Ariely’s book, The Honest Truth about Dishonesty, he explains, through experiments, how internal and external factors cause people to lie and cheat. Ariely (2012) believes that people want to feel good about themselves, which is ego motivation, while also benefiting from cheating (p.27). He states that when people cheat a little they can still view themselves in a positive way through rationalization. The author then goes on to propose the fudge factor theory which is a person’s ability to rationalize their cheating (Ariely, 2012, p.27). In Ariely’s book he describes factors that can influence whether a person will cheat such as morals, conflicts of interest, peers, organizational culture, self-rationalization, and creativity. Moreover, he describes factors that can stop people from cheating, such as moral reminders, signatures, and regulation. This paper will provide a summary of

He starts by explaining the concept of external signaling, meaning that a person’s clothing shows their social status to others (Ariely, 2012, p.120). He states that people who buy counterfeit clothing diminish the strength of external signaling and the authenticity of the real product (Ariely, 2012, p.122). Moreover, Ariely describes self-signaling that means that a person judges and view ourselves the same way we do others. For instance, he questions whether wearing counterfeit clothing, make us feel less legitimate (Ariely, 2012, p.123). In one of his studies he discovered that participants who wore counterfeit clothing cheated significantly more that those who wore authentic clothing (Ariely, 2012, p. 125). Furthermore, Ariely discusses the “What the Hell,” effect which means that once a person cheats once, they will continue to cheat (Ariely, 2012, p. 130). In another study, he found that the “What the Hell effect,” was profound in the counterfeit and authentic