Why We Lie Dan Ariely Summary

In “Why We Lie” Dan Ariely discusses how small scale cheating is worse for our society than large scale cheating. The author mentions how we think that people are usually either honest or dishonest, but points out that everyone is capable of being dishonest and of cheating by just a little. He conducts a basic matrix test in which test subjects are given a paper with a series of matrices to solve, then they have to find the two numbers that equal to ten and will be paid for how many they solved. Ariely added a shedder variable to one of the groups so that they could shedder their papers and then say how many they solved to get paid. He found an overall spike of improved results from the shredder group because there were more people who cheated …show more content…
If you think about it there is a majority of the population that from time to time cheat just a little while you have a smaller percent of people who flat out cheat. Everyone does it, weather they’re telling a little white lie about something or keeping the extra change the cashier gives them. We really don’t even think twice about because it is so common among our peers. Most of us wouldn’t ever think that it would be a big deal because it’s just a little thing, but when you get a bunch of people doing that little something it can snowball into a bigger …show more content…
The episode was about how Bugs Bunny didn’t want to go to the annual peach festival with Porky Pig, but he didn’t want to hurt Porky’s feelings so he tells a little white lie about how he is busy helping his sister, who he made up, move. Unfortunately Bugs’ lie begins to grow into a larger lie that gets out of control. It began to affect how he was living to continue feeding into the cover story. In the end Bugs ends up dressing up as his fake sister, spending a thousand dollars to ship stuff to the country of Albania and then fly there himself to continue to support his little white