Blog Post #1

Shelby Kluver

Melinda Schroder

English 101

9/27/16

Blog Post 1

Summary

This essay is about what motivates people to be dishonest. We like to believe that most people, if given the opportunity would be honest. Dan Ariely and his colleagues did a test called the Matrix Task, which placed people in several scenarios to see if they would tell the truth. He hired an actor to stand up during the middle of the class and say he finished everything and got everything right, and that tempted many of the participants to lie and say they had more correct then they did. When test subjects were offered more money for correct answers, they actually cheated less. Another test was that he asked one group to name the Ten Commandments and the other group to name ten books they read in high school. There was no cheating for the naming of the Ten Commandments. These different tests helped Dan and his colleagues to determine that there are many factors involved when people cheat.

Paragraph 10

We have to answer the question what makes people cheat more or less, because we know that most people cheat, even if it is only by a little.

Important Point

“Everybody has the capacity to be dishonest, and almost everybody cheats- just by a little. It has shown rather conclusively that cheating does not correspond to the traditional, rational model of human behavior – that is, the idea that people simply weigh the benefits (say, money) against the costs (the possibility of getting caught and punished) and act accordingly.”

Reason I picked this quote

It shows me that even people I think would never cheat could, but it also informs me cheating is not always normal and that is depends on what the incentive is for the person to be honest.

Favorite Point

1. “The purpose of locks, the locksmith said, is to protect you from the 98% of mostly honest people who might be tempted to try your door if it had no lock.”

2.” But locking our doors against the dishonest monsters will not keep them out; they will always cheat their way in.”

Part I disagree with

I did not like the example of the automobile-insurance forms. I did not feel like that was a great illustration because they could not prove if people were really lying or not. I like being able to have all the facts.

I posted on Hannah's and Emma's blog.