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How To Enjoy Your Decision
5/22/13 -
Inside the Mind of a Psychopath
5/14/13
We sign our names to various documents all the time. Some signatures seal a legal contract. Others pledge us to an action. Now a study finds that when and where someone sign a document can influence the likelihood of them being honest or cheating.
Scientists had people sign more than 13,000 auto insurance forms—one group signed at the top of the form, the other at the bottom. And those who signed at the top admitted to nearly 2,500 more miles of usage than those who signed at the bottom. Which translated into a $48 difference in annual premiums.
According to the researchers, because the top-signers put their names on the document before they were even tempted to fabricate information, they are less likely to act dishonestly. The study is in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Many people routinely deceive themselves to rationalize dishonest behavior. The $345-billion gap between what people should be paying in U.S. taxes and what they claim isn’t just due to chronic liars. It also depends on normally honest people stretching the truth. Perhaps having taxpayers sign their forms before filling them out would cut down on that stretching.
—Christie Nicholson
[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]
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3 Comments
Add CommentIt not within the rule of law signing anything before hand. You would be taking off the person the right to repent, change mind, think better. But is very coherent with a police state.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy younger daughter at the age of 8 was in a local community sponsored kite flying contest. The kids were supposed to build and fly kites of their own design and construction. However my daughters stepfather took over all the work for her and she won the contest. I heard about it later..when she told me. I remember asking her how it felt to win, and I still remember, 30 years later, her answer....." I won, but I didn't really win." I was so proud that she understood this at age 8....I think cheating is a tactic learned, taught, and absorbed by people early on and repeated in many ways ever after.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBeing aware that you cheated is not the same thing as learning not to cheat. It sounds like she got away with it and that's a terrible lesson. In a former more ethical world, a parent would actually come clean about this in order to ensure the child did not learn the wrong thing. But we don't live in that world anymore.
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