Why And How Do We Cheat? - An Awkward Corner

Why And How Do We Cheat?

Niranjan Rajadhyaksha - Monday, April 06, 2009 3:18 PM

 1. Should nurses treating a burn patient rip out bandages assuming he prefers intense pain over a short period time? Or should they take off the bandages slowly assuming that the patient prefers low-intensity pain over a long period of time?

2. Is a person less likely to cheat when he is reminded of an honour code or a religious text?

3. Is there any link between stealing pencils from office and selling complicated mortgage-backed securities?

The answers are to be found in a brilliant TED Talk given by behavioural economist Daniel Ariely. He blogs here.

I will not spoil the fun and reveal the answers here. Enron and the current stock market mess have starring roles.

Enjoy!

(PS: This is a lovely review of Dan Ariely's book written by my colleague Manas Chakravarty in May 2008. Thanks to the Mint fan who asked me, in the comments section, to provide this link.)

Share this post: email it! | del.icio.us! | digg it! | newsVine!
Tagged in: , , ,
5 Comment

From Gulzar

April 6, 2009 6:56 PM
good one... and his recent book, Predictably Irrational, now available in bookstores in India is an excellent read. all of this is outlined there.

From V.B.N.Ram

April 7, 2009 7:52 AM
The blog is educative, thought provoking and informative, as indeed are all the connected blogs, which have been referred to. However, according to my reckoning the best of the referred blogs were: a ) the one which suggests that banks should be mandated to give customers the choice to opt out of the default overdraft system, as also prevent them from hoodwinking the customers into paying unjustifiably inflated charges by crafty manipulation of clearing the highest value transactions first. Warren Buffet's analysis " buy when everyone else is selling and sell when everyone else is buying " is simple for one and all to comprehend, besides being extremely useful.Businesses around the world use any and all means to fleece their clients, credit card companies are notoroious at that. I have on many occasions been wrongly charged, or even over charged by them. Taking logic in the reverse direction, are there any clever, almost bizzare ways in which a person can save money. Here is one: A person took a $ 50 loan, from a bank after pledging his custom built limousine, worth an astounding $ 75000/- The bank's manager was curious to know from this man, why for a paltry loan amount, he had pledged such an expensive car. Pat came the reply from him, I will be out of town for three months. " The parking charges in downtown Manhattan would be many times the multiple of the loan amount."

From Soham

April 8, 2009 4:05 PM
One of the best conclusions came from him when he linked the color of sweatshirt and cheating :) Herd Mentality at its best and this is what I feel drove financial world to a tizzy as we see today. Same as you, Niranjan, I didn't take away the fun :)

From A Mint fan

April 12, 2009 11:29 PM
Would have been good to link to a very good review of Dan's book last year by Manas in Lounge.

From runescape accounts

May 9, 2009 2:41 PM
Would have been good to link to a very good review of Dan's book last year by Manas in Lounge.

POST YOUR COMMENT

:
(required)
 
Email Address
(required)
   
(optional)
(HTML not allowed)