In 1940 Action Comics introduced a brilliant supervillain named Lex Luthor who tries to kill Superman to advance his plot to rule the world. These days news articles often portray Bernard Madoff as an “evil genius” because of his creative Ponzi scheme that siphoned some $20 billion from investors.

We think of an evil genius as someone who devises a clever plan for wrongdoing on a large scale. According to behavioral economist Dan Ariely of Duke University, however, the genius of the perpetrators often manifests itself not in elaborate planning of misdeeds but in almost the exact opposite: an unplanned escalation of a minor wrong they imaginatively have justified to themselves. I spoke with Ariely, author of The (Honest) Truth about Dishonesty (HarperCollins, 2012), about the true origins of evil genius.

Scientific American Mind: Creativity, or genius, is usually thought to be a positive attribute. What made you think it might have a dark side?

ARIELY: There are two models of dishonest behavior. The economic model is one in which people do a cost-benefit analysis. You go by a store and ask yourself, “How much money do they have in the store, and what are the chances I'd be caught?” You then decide whether to rob the store or not. We found very little evidence that this is how people think.

What we do find is that lots of us are able to cheat a little bit and still think of ourselves as honest people. This suggests that dishonesty is all about rationalization. It's all about the small acts we can take and then think to ourselves, “No, this is not real cheating.” Think about people who do accounting fraud. When they start, they say to themselves, “The rules of accounting are so unclear, is it really so bad?” Or they say, “I'll fix it in the next quarter.” Or think about when Clinton said, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.” At the time, he likely redefined sexual relations, and in his mind he really didn't cheat.

So I wondered: What kind of people would be able to rationalize better than others? Creative people will be able to tell themselves better stories. Intelligence doesn't change anything, we found. It's not the smartness part. The creativity part lets you find all kinds of ways to convince yourself that what you're doing is actually okay.

Are all creative people more dishonest, or are other personality characteristics required?

It's very easy to think that dishonesty is only a function of the individual, but the reality is that the environment plays a big role. You cheat when the rules are flexible or not very clear and when you have a conflict of interest or a reason to have a biased perception of reality. Let's say you and I think of ourselves as honest people. But imagine we were on Wall Street in 2007, and we could get a $10-million bonus if only we could see mortgage-backed securities as a good product. With $10 million on the line, you could probably convince yourself these securities are quite good—or at least better than they are. But if the environment doesn't allow for dishonesty, creativity won't be such a big deal. If you put a creative person in a military academy, where he has no flexibility in his decisions, he will be perfectly honest.

When we think about evil genius, we imagine clever plots to take over the world. But most creative dishonesty isn't like that, is it?

It's important to distinguish between how acts of dishonesty start and how they end. I've been interviewing cheaters, people who are involved in all kinds of white-collar crime. I've tried to talk to Madoff—he refuses to talk to anybody—but I've talked to people who know him. He seemed like an incredibly smart guy. He took lots of money from people and yet didn't seem to think about the endgame. If you or I were going to steal $20 billion, wouldn't we find a nice island somewhere with no extradition rules and figure out how to get there when the time comes? I would speculate that when he started, he did not have a long-term plan. I suspect that in the first quarter, he said, “I'll just do this for one quarter, and then next quarter I'll make it up….” But then he fell more and more behind. I think evil geniuses start like all of us—they are maybe a little more creative, so maybe their acts are more frequent or extreme—but the vast majority get on a slippery slope, and at some point there's no way back.

12 Comments

1. 1. geojellyroll 10:45 AM 10/30/12

   The word 'evil' is not a scientific one. Are wolves that hide meat from bigger pack members 'evil'?
   
   Intelligent people may not be as passive and willing to accept the rationalization of unjust political or economic structures. They may tip the paperboy $20 at Christmas but see no moral issue with not declaring $20 in income so a wasteful governmnet can pi$$ it away.
   
   Anyways, 'not playing the game' is not the same as deceiving and hurting individuals. People need not be 'sheeple' in China, the USA or any society. We evolved to take care of ourselves, family and clan...not be indentured servants to 'Big Brother'. In novels and movies there is a reason why we root for the rebellious non-conformist. He is often the ethical one not selling his soul

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2. 2. dbtinc 10:53 AM 10/30/12

   Lex can't hold a candle to Mitt ...

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3. 3. Traveler 007 in reply to dbtinc 11:28 AM 10/30/12

   And as far as evil goes, Mitt can't hold a candle to Obama

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4. 4. willfree 11:34 AM 10/30/12

   How I look forward to mid-November when it will be possible to post an article without drawing political fire.

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5. 5. doug_pdq 12:16 PM 10/30/12

   "moral flexibility" ??? Funny characterization of dishonesty.
   I guess we shouldn't be surprised at the outcomes when we choose the most qualified, creative psychopaths for political leaders and CEOs.

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6. 6. dbtinc in reply to Traveler 007 01:13 PM 10/30/12

   stunning comeback - you sound like a mislead knuckle-dragger who cannot believe that Willard will do no good for most of us.

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7. 7. dbtinc in reply to Traveler 007 01:13 PM 10/30/12

   stunning comeback - you sound like a mislead knuckle-dragger who cannot believe that Willard will do no good for most of us.

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8. 8. rshoff 02:04 PM 10/30/12

   The flexible nature of our psyche (if that is the correct word to use) is unnerving. Our ability to be moral/honest or amoral/dishonest within the borders of the flexibility of our environment as pointed out by this article is an example. We are truly influenced by our environment and therefore are not in control of who we are or who we are to become. THAT is truly unnerving to me. I prefer to try for a steady-state identity. But that may only be a compulsion.

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9. 9. GrowMap 07:52 PM 10/31/12

   Conditioning by the media, society, advertising, educational systems has resulted in people who are totally self-absorbed who have no moral compass. Some lack any sense of what is right or wrong any more.
   
   Psychopaths do anything that results in the outcome they want regardless of how that affects anyone else. That is evil, but American society puts many who do that well on a pedestal and holds them out as role models. No wonder people can rationalize away almost any behavior.
   
   The most dangerous con artist is a brilliant one who is confident, attractive, and persuasive. The masses who are conditioned to believe whatever they're told are easy prey for these people who will do almost anything. Most people cam be talked out of what they just saw by someone who keeps repeating that something else actually happened. You know people like that who repeat the last thing they heard as though it were fact, waffling back and forth between totally different viewpoints or even believing two things that are mutually exclusive at the same time.
   
   For some, there is nothing they will not do to others - and they are attracted to money but above all power. They are running the show, but that does not mean we have to be a party to it - yet. Escape is becoming vastly more diffult though.

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10. 10. jgrosay 09:37 PM 10/31/12

    Good article. Rationalization, is a psychoanalysis' term: "A neurotic defense mechanism, a fake rationale, some use to justify what everybody, including themselves, know it's unacceptable". Avoiding legal punishment is self-protection, you're not obliged to declare against yourself, not self-harming prevails; only on a superior command, as in martyrdom, this rule can be broken. Sexual instinct is stronger than self-preservation instinct, this makes near impossible for example to deter kid molesters just by punishing them; in the Lewinski to Clinton sexual attack, mr B C wasn't obliged to say the truth if risks of being found liar were smaller than admitting the fact. Some religious comments about this: "Sin entered the world because of the law, as before the law there was sin, but it wasn't imputed" or: "Those breaking the law unadvertently will get few beats, but those doing evil knowing it will get many beats", this in contrast with the rule: "Ignoring the law doesn't exmpt to comply it". For Aquinas those following their conscience thinking something is not evil don't sin. Ethics is different from law enforcement; you're not obliged to suicidal acts, and have every right to escape harm, punishments do harm, so you can observe silence or lie to those prosecuting you. Attorneys may have a command not to defend those confessing guilty, they may act in this as a first court, but attempts to reduce punishments to their customers are right. Imprinting ethics can be done in different ways: prof. Rodriguez-Delgado, that stopped a bull's attack by a radio signal activating electricity in the bull's brain, proposed a "psycho-civilized society", hope we're not treated as bulls or our minds rearranged, modern psychotherapy can do this. The Bible's stated "The saved won't be able to sin", in contrast to the current situation, we may have been created perfect, but we were created free. Smart people find ways to avoid faults detected or punished, this is far from devoting minds to invent or teach crimes, as writers Sade, Ducasse or Genet, or invert their scale of values, evil being considered the goal; some say this is an evidence of satanic influence in some mental disorders, no surprise, theologians consider death and disease a result of devil's actions in nature: "Death entered the world because of the envy of devil". Anti-psychiatrists said it's better allowing "insane" doing their will as long as it's not harmful or risky to third parties or to themselves. Above all, stay calmly!

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11. 11. Raghuvanshi1 12:49 AM 11/1/12

    I agree telling the truth all the time is impossible thing to live with.If you want to support of people make them fool if you tell them truth they stone you.Man always want illusion,those who provide them illusion people run behind them.How can man survive without illusion in this world?.Long long ago Freud wrote "people are not capable to understand the truth".My firm opinion is truth is harmful to survival on earth.You to wear thousand persona in the world for survival.

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12. 12. rshoff in reply to Raghuvanshi1 12:17 PM 11/1/12

    You're right that man wants and needs illusion to soften the harshness of his reality but it's important to respect each man's right to determine where and when he wants to delude himself. With rare exception it's not up to one individual to decide where that boundary lies for another.

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