We interrupt this primary day to bring you one of those fun ethical puzzles.
A researcher at MIT conducted some experiments to see gauge situational ethics -- basically to see under what conditions people might steal something or cheat.
Here's how the test worked: Ariely and his students went around and left six-packs of Coke in randomly selected dorm refrigerators all over campus. When he checked back in a few days, all of the Cokes were gone.
But when he later placed plates of six loose dollar bills in those same refrigerators, not a single bill was missing when he checked back. Even though the value was comparable--and thus the situations were supposed to be equivalent--people responded in opposite ways. Why is that?
I imagine that if he left those loose dollar bills on a table next to the refrigerators they might have gone missing also. Nobody puts money in a refrigerator -- unless you are a congressman from New Orleans.
But the Coke part of the experiment is interesting. Would you take a Coke or some food from a communal refrigerator at school or the office?
The experiment on cheating was also interesting:
For example, he gave people a test consisting of very easy math questions--but without giving them nearly enough time to finish. On average, people got four right out of 20. Then he had people take the test, score it themselves, shred the answer sheet and tell him how they did. Suddenly the average jumped to seven.
He repeated the experiment, paying people according to how many right answers they got. Same result. "Everybody cheated, but just a little." Even when there was no chance of getting caught--the evidence was shredded and participants paid themselves from a jar of money with over $100--nobody claimed 20 right answers. They just padded their results by a bit.
But then he tried another variation: Before doing the test, he asked one group of subjects to name 10 books they had read in high school. He asked another group to name as many of the Ten Commandments as they could remember. The group that listed the books followed the same pattern as the earlier test--they all cheated a little. But the group that named the commandments was different: Nobody cheated at all!
"Just the act of contemplating morality eliminated cheating," Ariely explains.
This sort of reminds me about how people lie to pollsters. The percentage of people who told pollsters that they voted for John F. Kennedy in 1960 jumped dramatically right after he was assassinated.
So, have you ever fudged a test score, rounding it up a bit to make yourself look better when you knew there was no chance of getting caught? Or perhaps fudged a little in a job interview or maybe inflated your income to friends? Is there any harm in doing that?
__________________________
qui tacet consentire
I personally wouldn't take the coke
but it does not rise to the level of stealing in my mind, being in a communal fridge.
The Ten Commandments thing is funny though. I think most people fudge a bit in a job interview - inflate your own experience a bit. I've seen enough of that interviewing people :)
__________________________"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
Cheating
I have a substantial library of copied movies at home. I personally don't consider that theft because I don't accept the idea of intellectual "property," but of course a lot of people would disagree.
The only class I cheated on to my benefit was multivariable calculus. It was a hellacious term, I'd previously screwed myself as far as math so I was slowly falling further and further behind, and the lecturer was god awful. We had a ton of homework in the class that we turned into slot to be collected. A couple times I took homework from the slot to look over and mostly copy. I felt pretty guilty about it.
I've helped other people cheat plenty of times. We had a pretty good system back in high school science. I had a graphing calculator that had all the alaphabet letters. So my table mates, three really cute girls (not exactly coincidental to this story), would ask to borrow my calculator, type out on the screen their question and hand it back to me. I'd answer it and then a few minutes later they'd ask to borrow it again.
Job interviews- certainly I've tried to make things sound better than they might be objectively. I haven't outright lied though. I figure the first is expected, whereas the second is over the line.
I don't lie to friends about things like income. If I felt like I had to then we wouldn't be friends.
__________________________I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
Great book
That's a great book
. I recently read it and I was planning on writing a review once I had the time.
The author also mentions that people will steal office supplies from work without thinking twice, but would never steal an equivalent amount of cash in order to purchase the same supplies.
I heartily recommend going to your local library and taking a good look.
__________________________I'm listening to...
I'm still certain that what motivates me
Is more rewarding than any piece of paper could be -- Dennis Lyxzén
I think there is an understandable psychology at work there
an with the soda cans as well.
Basically it goes to the same idea as the penny tray at a convenience store. You might never steal a penny normally but if it is put into a socially acceptable context it ceases to be stealing. Since giving and bumming soda is extremely common it ceases to seem like theft. Similarly people give and take pens all the time, so taking a pen from work doesn't seem like theft.
Personally I tend to think we'd all be better off with a more Roma style attitude where you don't own things except as you are using them.
__________________________I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
Use rights
Use rights (rather than ownership) have always been fascinating to me. When I was doing a lot of reading on left anarchism, I could be seen slowly nodding my head.
Anarchism, would be ideal, I think, but we aren't going to get anywhere near there in my lifetime, so I don't much see the point in seriously advocating any anarchist policies that won't get any traction.
__________________________I'm listening to...
I'm still certain that what motivates me
Is more rewarding than any piece of paper could be -- Dennis Lyxzén
I know what you mean.
For the most part I see anarchism is about the personal relationship to the world, rather than something I'm trying to bring about.
__________________________I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
I forgot to comment back
I forgot to comment back when I first saw this post. I actually witnessed an actual "steal a soda" situation. I was in Puerto Rico, waiting in line at the DMV down there. There was a soda vending machine, and a guy servicing it. For some reason the guy went away with the front of the machine open. All of a sudden, there was a party atmosphere as everyone descended upon the machine, grabbing sodas, including mothers joyously handing out sodas to their kids as if they had rained down like manna from heaven, and, watching the mothers in particular setting this example for their kids, I just thought, WTF????