Unfair (49 page)

In an interesting demonstration of this:
Bryan, Adams, and Monin, “When Cheating Would Make You a Cheater,” 3–4.

Although all participants were aware:
Bryan, Adams, and Monin, “When Cheating Would Make You a Cheater,” 3–4.

It's hard to imagine that:
Bryan, Adams, and Monin, “When Cheating Would Make You a Cheater,” 3–4.

When the verb “cheat” was used:
Bryan, Adams, and Monin, “When Cheating Would Make You a Cheater,” 4.

To feel good about ourselves:
Ariely,
The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty
, 26–27.

Cheating on a few questions:
Mazar, Amir, and Ariely, “The Dishonesty of Honest People,” 635–42.

But there's another way:
Shu, Gino, and Bazerman, “Dishonest Deed, Clear Conscience,” 330–31; Ariely,
The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty
, 26–27.

So, although 51 percent:
Josephson Institute of Ethics, “For the First Time in a Decade, Lying, Cheating and Stealing Among American Students Drops,”
The Ethics of American Youth:
2012, November 20, 2012,
http://charactercounts.org/​programs/reportcard/2012/index.html
; Josephson Institute of Ethics, “2012 Report Card on the Ethics of American Youth,” November 20, 2012,
http://charactercounts.org/​pdf/reportcard/2012​/ReportCard-2012-DataTables-HonestyIntegrityCheating.pdf
. In addition, 99 percent of students agreed that “it is important for me to be a person with good character,” 92 percent agreed that “people should play by the rules even if it means they lose,” and 81 percent agreed that “when it comes to doing right, I am better than most people I know.” Josephson Institute of Ethics, “2012 Report Card.”

Likewise, while taxpayers end up:
Put differently, the government collects only about 83 percent of what it is owed each year, despite widespread disapproval of tax evasion. IRS Oversight Board, 2011
Taxpayer Attitude Survey
(Washington, DC: IRS Oversight Board, 2012): 3,
http://www.treasury.gov/​irsob/reports/2012​/IRSOB~Taxpayer%20Attitude%20Survey%202012.pdf
; Internal Revenue Service, “Tax Gap”; Rebecca Jarvis, “America at Tax Time: What Cheaters Cost Us,” CBS News, April 16, 2012,
http://www.cbsnews.com/​8301-3445_162-57414288/america-at-tax-time-what-cheaters-cost-us/
;
Kevin McCoy, “IRS Struggling to Combat Rise in Tax Fraud,”
USA Today
, April 15, 2012; Adam Davidson et al., “What's the Easiest Way to Cheat on Your Taxes,”
New York Times
, April 3, 2012,
http://www.nytimes.com/​2012/04/08/magazine​/whats-the-easiest-way-to-cheat-on-your-taxes.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
. When the IRS Oversight Board conducted a survey in 2011, 84 percent of participants reported that it was “not at all acceptable to cheat on one's income taxes.” Jarvis, “What Cheaters Cost Us.” Tax cheating is so widespread that even those who are most likely to get caught and have the most to lose seem unable to resist. Right after President Obama first took office in 2009, for example, he immediately had to deal with the controversy related to three of his high-profile nominees acknowledging that they failed to pay certain income taxes. Jeff Zeleny, “Daschle Ends Bid for Post, Obama Concedes Mistake,”
New York Times
, February 3, 2009,
http://www.nytimes.com/​2009/02/04​/us/politics/04obama.html​?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1358357494-69yNRPiCWFllvL3DdUjLxA
.

If we want to understand why:
Ariely,
The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty
, 39.

When justifying our actions:
Ariely,
The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty
, 53.

And therein lies the key:
Some experts have theorized that deceiving ourselves is beneficial because it means that we are less likely to manifest to others that we are dishonest. Ariely,
The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty
, 142.

One of the most promising strategies:
Ariely,
The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty
, 184.

And the greater the distance:
Ariely,
The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty
, 59.

For example, scientists have found:
Ariely,
The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty
, 33–34. The experiment parallels the experience of the worker who steals office supplies but not cash, or
the shopper who receives an unexpected “discount”: it's easy to justify not returning to a department store to remedy a $20 undercharge on our credit card but very difficult to rationalize taking a $20 bill out of the cash register—despite the fact that the ultimate harm to the store is the same. In another study of this dynamic, when researchers asked golfers about how comfortable the average golfer would be cheating in different ways, participants reported that moving the ball with the club would be most comfortable, followed by kicking it with a shoe, followed by picking it up with the hand. Ariely,
The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty
, 58–59. The more distance between the golfer (or customer, student, or employee) and the clearly impermissible act or undeniable harm, the easier to act dishonestly and maintain a positive self-view. Ariely,
The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty
, 59.

Since Thompson was on death row:
Connick
, 131 S. Ct. at 1374 (Ginsburg, J., dissenting); Lithwick, “Cruel but Not Unusual.”

Indeed, it was possible that:
This aligns with one of Williams's claims that the lab report did not qualify as
Brady
material “because [he] didn't know what the blood type of Mr. Thompson was.”
Connick
, 131 S. Ct. at 1379 (Ginsburg, J., dissenting). The District Court, however, instructed the jury that the report did qualify as
Brady
material.
Connick
, 131 S. Ct. at 1379 (Ginsburg, J., dissenting).

Although we can't know for sure:
Lithwick, “Cruel but Not Unusual.”

Other common types of prosecutorial misconduct:
Possley and Armstrong, “The Flip Side of a Fair Trial.”

It can also feel like:
Shu, Gino, and Bazerman, “Dishonest Deed, Clear Conscience,” 331.

Researchers have begun to look more:
Ariely,
The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty
, 197–201; Francesca Gino, Shahar Ayal, and Dan Ariely, “Contagion and Differentiation in Unethical Behavior,”
Psychological Science
20, no. 3 (2009): 393–98.

In a recent study, psychologists had:
Gino, Ayal, and Ariely, “Contagion and Differentiation,” 395.

One of the “test-takers,” who was:
Gino, Ayal, and Ariely, “Contagion and Differentiation,” 395.

The question was whether:
Ariely,
The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty
, 197, 199; Gino, Ayal, and Ariely, “Contagion and Differentiation,” 395–96.

It did, but only when:
Ariely,
The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty
, 204–06; Gino, Ayal, and Ariely, “Contagion and Differentiation,” 396.

When he was wearing a rival:
Ariely,
The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty
, 204–06; Gino, Ayal, and Ariely, “Contagion and Differentiation,” 396.

Responding to Justice Scalia's characterization:
Connick
, 131 S. Ct. at 1366 (Scalia, J., concurring); Liptak, “$14 Million Jury Award to Ex-Inmate Is Dismissed.”

As she described:
Connick
, 131 S. Ct. at 1370 (Ginsberg, J, dissenting).

Bruce Whittaker, the prosecutor who had:
Connick
, 131 S. Ct. at 1372 (Ginsberg, J, dissenting);
Connick
, 131 S. Ct. at 1356.

But neither man turned it over:
Connick
, 131 S. Ct. at 1356;
Connick
, 131 S. Ct. at 1372 (Ginsberg, J, dissenting).

Then Deegan, who was working:
Connick
, 131 S. Ct. at 1356.

Neither Williams nor Deegan mentioned:
Connick
, 131 S. Ct. at 1356.

There were other critical materials:
Connick
, 131 S. Ct. at 1372 (Ginsberg, J, dissenting).

Thompson's attorneys might have seriously:
Connick
, 131 S. Ct. at 1374 (Ginsberg, J, dissenting).

Likewise, the defense team might have:
Connick
, 131 S. Ct. at 1374 (Ginsberg, J, dissenting).

And, critically, Thompson's attorneys:
Connick
, 131 S. Ct. at 1374 (Ginsberg, J, dissenting).

All of this suggests a
culture
:
“Failure of Empathy and Justice,”
New York Times
, March 31, 2011,
http://www.nytimes.com/​2011/04/01/opinion​/01fri2.html?_r=0
.

As Justice Ginsburg put it:
Connick
, 131 S. Ct. at 1370 (Ginsberg, J, dissenting).

District Attorney Connick himself:
Connick
, 131 S. Ct. at 1378 (Ginsberg, J, dissenting); Emily Bazelon, “Playing Dirty in the Big Easy,”
Slate
, April 18, 2012,
http://www.slate.com/​articles/news_and_politics​/crime/2012/04/new_orleans_district_attorney_leon_cannizzaro_is_being_questioned_for_his_ethics_in_pursuing_convictions_.html
.

But we also take cues:
Ariely,
The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty
, 122.

This explains, in part, how:
Ariely,
The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty
, 137.

Take a few steps down:
Ariely,
The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty
, 130–31.

It is not just that small infractions:
Ariely,
The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty
, 123–30.

In one of my favorite experiments:
Ariely,
The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty
, 123–24.

You might expect that the fake:
Ariely,
The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty
, 125.

According to the researchers:
Ariely,
The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty
, 126.

And they also viewed:
Ariely,
The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty
, 132–34.

It is easy to see how:
Ariely,
The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty
, 136.

Initially, a colleague or superior:
Ariely,
The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty
, 136.

Awareness of that transgression may:
Ariely,
The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty
, 136.

After the initial breach of ethics:
Ariely,
The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty
, 136.

Making matters worse, the research predicts:
Ariely,
The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty
, 132–34.

As improbable as it sounds:
Shu, Gino, and Bazerman, “Dishonest Deed, Clear Conscience,” 331.

Indeed, research suggests that a major:
Ariely,
The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty
, 177–78.

In one experiment, scientists looked:
Ariely,
The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty
, 177–78.

Customers on the receiving end:
Ariely,
The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty
, 177–78.

We might also imagine a new attorney:
Ariely,
The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty
, 136–37.

Deegan was the least experienced:
Connick
, 131 S. Ct. at 1372 n. 3 (Ginsberg, J, dissenting).

Along similar lines, one way:
Shu, Gino, and Bazerman, “Dishonest Deed, Clear Conscience,” 331.

If you speak with prosecutors candidly:
Abbe Smith, “Can You Be a Good Person and a Good Prosecutor?,”
Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics
14 (2001): 376.

In a startling finding:
Ariely,
The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty
, 232.

If we are acting solely:
Ariely,
The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty
, 232.

People who work for nonprofit:
Ariely,
The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty
, 232.

Ironically, then, it is caring deeply:
Ariely,
The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty
, 232.

Guilt-prone people, for example:
Taya R. Cohen, A. T. Panter, and Nazli Turan, “Guilt Proneness and Moral Character,”
Current Directions in Psychological Science
21 (2012): 355, doi: 10.1177/0963721412454874.

Sparked by intriguing findings:
David Salisbury, “Breakdown of White-Matter Pathways Affects Decisionmaking As We Age,”
Research News @ Vanderbilt
, April 11, 2012,
http://news.vanderbilt.edu/​2012/04​/declining-decisionmaking/
; Hikaru Takeuchi et al., “White Matter Structures Associated With Creativity: Evidence From Diffusion Tensor Imaging,”
NeuroImage
51 (2010): 11–18; Ariely,
The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty
, 170.