The Honest Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone--Especially Ourselves Kindle Edition

I admire the work of Dan Ariely. This is a very insightful and interesting book about dishonesty written by a renowned behavioral researcher. I recommend this book without qualifications. This book is very useful for understanding human behavior. Great examples too.

This is a long review. I believe it is justified because, based on my reading of the nearly 300 Amazon reviews, a few critical reviewers have hinted at the issues I raise below but without getting to the fundamental methodological and epistemological issues that plague the type of experimental approach employed by Dan Ariely.

Ariely’s “The Honest Truth about Dishonesty” is engagingly written, interesting, informative, entertaining but ultimately tremendously frustrating. Ariely attempts to present a systematic demonstration of how common cheating is and what some of the situational factors are which increase or decrease its prevalence. His points are interesting but largely mundane. In sharp contrast to his experimental methods and findings, Ariely’s anecdotes (e.g., his Eurorail ticket escapade) and his observational studies (e.g., Coke in the refrigerator, generous snack machine) are more interesting, more substantive and more thought-provoking and nuanced.

Unfortunately, there are major systemic flaws in the experimental methods Ariely uses to make his rather non-controversial main point: Some people cheat some of the time.

My fundamental frustration is that, like many experiments in behavioral economics and psychology, the meanings of the results of the experiments are open to multiple interpretations but Ariely emphasizes the ones that support his narrative. He continually implicitly attributes motives and thought processes to his subjects. We never hear from the subjects as to their interpretation of the situations and their explanations as to why they decided to cheat or not to cheat. This is a very fundamental methodological and epistemological problem with this kind of experiment. (Another reviewer pointed to Sissela Bok’s book Lying and in particular Chapter 13 on deception in social science research. Here I am focused not so much on the morality of deception, but the limits such deception places on our ability to understand the phenomena being examined)

Second, Ariely’s descriptions of his experiments are grossly inadequate. For example, he does not report the actual numbers of individuals in the myriad of experiments who did not cheat and the degree to which they actually cheated. He reports the averages of the groups exposed to a particular experimental condition. As far as I am concerned, this is highly problematic to the point of dishonesty. What makes it worse is that he does not report all the referenced experiments in the footnotes or the bibliography thereby making it very difficult to find the actual numbers for the experiments. I kept looking for a simple number – the percentage of people who actually cheated. He does not report this number and it is infuriating because you are left to conclude that everybody cheats in the experiments to some degree and this is simply and dramatically untrue. (The write up of at least some of the experiments in journal articles is also sloppy.) In trying to find Ariely-related experiments where researchers actually talked to people as people, I found a paper by one of his major collaborators, Prof. Francesca Gino, titled “Dishonest Deed, Clear Conscience”. The title suggests that some debriefing took place. Actually there was no debriefing of subjects but it did report an experiment where the researchers matched individuals with their answer sheets so that they could determine who cheated and by how much and, more importantly, who did not. It turns out that when simply given the opportunity and an incentive to cheat 43% of subjects DID NOT CHEAT. When shown an honor code, 68% DID NOT CHEAT. When asked to read and sign an honor code, only one subject out of 22 cheated, i.e., 95% DID NOT CHEAT! In my opinion, these numbers put Ariely’s results in a completely different light and require him to discuss in more detail what it is that make some people cheat and others not cheat. This is at the root of my frustration with the experimental methodology he uses.

Third, there is the obvious philosophical and ethical question raised by Bok as to why one would trust somebody who continuously uses deception and lies to generate “truth”. Ariely is well aware of this conundrum and makes a joke of it in his closing comment in Chapter 7. However, acknowledging the conundrum does not resolve the conundrum. The issue of deception in social science research is widely recognized but continues and is now probably more pervasive than ever. Ariely should consider alternative more honest means of exploring honesty and dishonesty. In short, why should we trust Ariely?

In sum, Ariely’s book fails to live up to its title. Even on its own narrow terms, it hardly amounts to the truth about dishonesty and he certainly does not show that “we lie to everyone, especially ourselves”. In fact, I would argue that Ariely, at a number of levels, is fundamentally dishonest in his representation of how widespread dishonesty is.

If you haven't read this author, he is refreshing and this field is so fun to explore. He has Ted Talks and other videos and is really a fantastic speaker.
He writes like he speaks. This is a great exploration into humans and how they behave. EVERYBODY LIES.

Ariely comes in to prove us all wrong on our common sense of cheating and dishonesty. He busts the case clear open with detailed, laid-out experiments which test once and for all the "common sense" and practical knowledge about cheating and dishonesty we've been spoon fed, revealing the situation to be much different than anyone thought. My favorite part of this book is how applicable it is to business and organizational interactions, and the little things it shows throughout the book which can curb cheating and dishonesty. Very well done, and thanks for providing us with such a great piece of literature in a prevalent yet under-studied field of human behavior.

never be dishonest.

I bought this book from a concern on how easy it was to lie to myself. The book definitely covers the subject, and does it very well. Its title is a good, even modest, indication of its insides.

First I want to emphasise the pleasant and relaxed style of the author, amusing and enjoyable. It really makes reading a pleasure.

I did not know the author, and I was pleasantly surprised to find out it is a scientific book (being a social scientist myself). The book takes you on an exciting experimental journey. Although not detailed, the epistemology of the experiments is sound.

In summary, it is a pleasant and amusing scientific book that enriches its reader, interesting science diguised in fun reading.

Thank you Dan!

Honestly I liked this book and the approach to human behaviors

People always cheating, we always suspect it. But what makes it different from person to person? Just small nicks in prior situation can fork the outcomes.

The studies themselves shown in the book are interesting but are not quite diversified like the author's previous books. Maybe it's because the topic is not broad for discussion and testing as Predictably Irrational, Revised and Expanded Edition: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions.

You can find the proofs to some of your belief about cheating here and hope it is a starting point for preventing cheating in society.