Summary and Response to Ariely's Chapter 11

In Chapter 11 of Dan Ariely's "Predictable Irrational", he brings up that there are many different types of theft that takes place in society. He discusses the fact that there are more reported thefts in white collar occupations than there are robbery theft. Ariely brings up the interesting question of why are white collar crimes judged less severely than others? He uses this as a lead in to bring up the two types of dishonesty that we perceive in our world: the people who invoke the idea that they are a crook and those who are seen as being the "honest" men and women of our society (white collar). Ariely brings up a study he did at Harvard, in which he had a group of MBA students take a 50 question multiple choice test, where he wanted to see if anyone would cheat when they were transferring their answers to the bubble sheet. Ariely was able to find that the majority of the students that were able to cheat did, but didn't cheat a lot, and it did not depend on them getting caught either. Ariely goes on to talk about how honesty is something that our society takes pride in, and that we need to have a sense of honesty to be able to get things done in our world.

Ariely places a big emphasis on trust and honesty because of the fact that dishonesty in his studies was only done to a certain extent. He was able to find that those who did in fact cheat on the test, only did it a little bit, not to the point where they were getting a much larger change in their grades. To curb dishonesty in our society, Ariely believes that we need to invoke the moral codes that advance our society into people's minds in an effective manner. By getting this done, it's reminding people that the only way to get far in life and be successful is mainly by focusing on your own personal work to make advancements for yourself. While this may be tough for people to do, I feel that it's crucial to invoke proper morals into people so they can be reminded that cheating isn't the way to make it in life. As a student, I can personally say that I deal with temptation on a daily basis because there are opportunities where I feel that I can cheat on a test or a quiz and get away with it. But I always have to remind myself that I would be lessening my own skills and decreasing my own moral values by doing this. Grades are valued so highly in today's world and at many times, students feel that pressure to do well in order to succeed. This leads to academic dishonesty and to students cheating on exams to try to better themselves.