The Honest Truth About Dishonesty

How We Lie to Everyone - Especially Ourselves

By: Dan Ariely

Narrated by: Simon Jones

Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins

Publisher's summary

This program is enhanced with 14 never-before-heard episodes of Dan Ariely's "Arming the Donkeys" podcast, available exclusively on this audiobook!

The New York Times bestselling author of Predictably Irrational and The Upside of Irrationality returns with thought-provoking work to challenge our preconceptions about dishonesty and urge us to take an "honest" look at ourselves.

Does the chance of getting caught affect how likely we are to cheat? How do companies pave the way for dishonesty? Does collaboration make us more honest or less so? Does religion improve our honesty?

Most of us think of ourselves as honest, but, in fact, we all cheat. From Washington to Wall Street, the classroom to the workplace, unethical behavior is everywhere. None of us is immune, whether it's the white lie to head off trouble or padding our expense reports. In The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty, award-winning, bestselling author Dan Ariely turns his unique insight and innovative research to the question of dishonesty.

Generally, we assume that cheating, like most other decisions, is based on a rational cost-benefit analysis. But Ariely argues, and then demonstrates, that it's actually the irrational forces that we don't take into account that often determine whether we behave ethically or not. For every Enron or political bribe, there are countless hidden commissions, and knockoff purses.

In The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty, Ariely shows why some things are easier to lie about; how getting caught matters less than we think; and how business practices pave the way for unethical behavior, both intentionally and unintentionally. Ariely explores how unethical behavior works in the personal, professional, and political worlds, and how it affects all of us, even as we think of ourselves as having high moral standards.

But all is not lost. Ariely also identifies what keeps us honest, pointing the way for achieving higher ethics in our everyday lives. With compelling personal and academic findings, The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty will change the way we see ourselves, our actions, and others.

Download the accompanying reference guide.

©2012 Dan Ariely (P)2012 HarperCollins Publishers

We are way more dishonest than we think we are!!

narrator was awesome, the book covers the facts about us lying to ourselves on a daily basis and we are so blind to those things that we even don't notice them. how do we justify something unethical? how we make excuses to cheat more? how we try to portray ourselves as an honest individual. it's just amazing that how one can justify the wrongful deeds.

Educational

I truly enjoy this book, and recommend it. One will enjoy it more than a fictional book and, one might be surprise the things one learns from it. The book reveals a true aspect of human nature and how we have a tendency to cheat and justify our actions. It is a requiem of tests/experiences in behavioral sciences. For a scientific mind, it is food for the soul.

A shocking look at the "honest liar"... AKA You

I enjoyed the combination between direct analysis of the data as well as the authors theory on what it means. I often get bored reading or listening to direct information without explanation and theory craft, as I've found you can find the precise data for free and much easier on the internet. What makes this intriguing is the reasoning behind the initial experiments and an exploration into disclosure and confirmation bias from the author himself. If you are looking for boring data driven text, this IS NOT the book for you. If you want an exciting examination of the author's(and your own) tendency to be an "honest" liar, you will be absolutely satisfied.

Boring - Lacks Substance + Practicality

What did you like best about The Honest Truth About Dishonesty? What did you like least?

Only somewhat illuminating on lies, most of this information has been in the ether of common knowledge for the past decade or so. Worst part is condemnation of business from an academic standpoint (big surprise academia), while completely ignoring the dishonesty permeating that oh so noble profession of professorship for decades. No practical application for anything (again big surprise academia.)

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

I can't remember the most interesting part, or the least interesting part, that should be a clue as to how captivated I was.

What does Simon Jones bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

He's British? Thats it.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

No.

Any additional comments?

Don't buy, there are likely to be more interesting books about dishonesty somewhere.

You Cheat (and I Do Too)

Dan Ariely's "Honest Truth About Dishonesty" is a nice divergence from his earlier books on irrationality, and contains much more original psychological research than these books. If you've enjoyed his prior books, you'll enjoy this one.

Ariely's books are all connected by the theme of how it is that we fool ourselves. In this work, Ariely shows that we're fooling ourselves and others just a little bit, almost all of the time through a number of clever experiments. What's particularly interesting is that Ariely finds that this cheating is not driven by cost/benefit tradeoffs -- the generally accepted rationale for why people cheat -- but, as in keeping with Ariely's prior work, cheating is found to be driven by less rational motivations. Changes in cost/benefit do matter, but opportunities for rationalization, the effect of social norms, and cognitive dissonance are at least equally important.

I don't know why Ariely keeps choosing Simon Jones to read his books. Jones is a great reader, but in a strongly British theatrical manner. Ariely, whom you'll get to hear in podcasts appended to the end of the book, or whom you may have heard on a TED talk, speaks American English with an Israeli accent. Further, the places Ariely writes about are almost always either in the US or Israel and almost never in England. If you know what the author sounds like, Jones seems to be a strange choice.

Great Listen! (No Lie)

The week I listened to Dan Ariely's "The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty - How We Lie to Everyone - Especially Ourselves" (2012), Ted Wells' 243 page "Investigative Report Concerning Footballs Used During the AFC Championship Game on January 18, 2015" was released. Wells is a criminal defense attorney who was hired by the NFL to determine if the New England Patriots intentionally underinflated footballs. Wells dryly noted "it is more probable than not that New England Patriots personnel participated in violations of the Playing Rules and were involved in a deliberate effort to circumvent the rules," Wells report, page 2.

The buzz since the report was released on May 6, 2015 is whether famed quarterback Tom Brady knew. As I write this review, Brady hasn't said one way or the other. Thanks to Ariely's "The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty" I've got an idea of how the coaching staff and players might have thought it was okay to 'cheat a little' - even when there was absolutely no reason to cheat. Ariely's done controlled experiments and published peer reviewed studies that show a lot of people will cheat, given the opportunity to do so; but most people don't cheat to the maximum amount possible, even if they know they won't be caught.

Ariely's book explains his work and the work of other behavioral scientists in ways that are engaging, easy to understand, and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny. There's a very, very funny discussion about the correlation between finals and dead grandmothers. He calculated the uptick in fatalities, and the correlation was alarming. It was a silent epidemic - of lying.

If honesty is armor, Ariely's identified "What the hell" as its biggest chink. Once someone does a little something dishonest, WTH? Why not crib a term paper, fudge the numbers on accounting report, and keep the extra change the guy at the drive through gave you along with your supersized fries. And if everyone else around you is doing it? Well, there's Enron manipulating California's energy market and knocking power out to schools and hospitals - and the Patriots running away with an AFC Championship that might have been a real contest if Brady didn't have the advantage of an easier to hold pigskin.

The last hour or so of the Audible is a series of interviews/podcasts that Ariely did with colleagues. That's kind of a neat way of putting the work into perspective.

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Great eye-opening and thinking book

What made the experience of listening to The Honest Truth About Dishonesty the most enjoyable?

I thought the narrator was particularly good. The book gave me several things to think about and ways of seeing myself and my associates more clearly. The part I liked least was the discussion at the end which, although interesting, really didn't add to the book. I could easily have lived without that. But overall it went along way to describing interactions with people and motivations of some. Excellent book.

An Honest Review

Where does The Honest Truth About Dishonesty rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

It ranks in the top ten. But I haven't heard that many audiobooks.

What other book might you compare The Honest Truth About Dishonesty to and why?

The Upside of Irrationality

What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?

The reader has good emphasize of words. He probably reads a little slow, but I think that is better for understanding.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

No. Some things were shocking but nothing I could not believe.

Any additional comments?

I think a lot of the material was from Predictable Irrational and the Upside of Irrationality. I was disappointed about this. However, He does a good job in expanding upon his work and getting some depth out of his experiments.

Things you must know about yourself

I couldn't stop listening. I have read Dan's work in the past, but this book was jaw-dropping, once slowly realizing how we are likely to cheat while considering ourselves having high morals. What was hard to grasp, was how often we cheat ourselves. All my little secrets were exposed one by one. The upside is that it is not only me. Highly recommended.

great studies in human nature we already knew

this is emperical evidence of how we deceive even ourselves. the narrative is very listenable.