We are all very good at rationalizing our actions so that they are in line with our selfish motives.
In a modern democracy, he said, people are beset not by a lack of opportunity, but by a dizzying abundance of it.
People choose to work more if they do it for free or if well-compensated but not if it is compensated with a little money.
We are more than height, weight, religion, and income. Others judge us on the basis of general subjective and aesthetic attributes, such as our manner of speaking and our sense of humor. We are also a scent, a sparkle of the eye, a sweep of the hand, the sound of a laugh, and the knit of a brow – ineffable qualities that can’t easily be captured in a database.
By the time we comprehend and digest information, it is not necessarily a true reflection of reality. Instead, it is our representation of reality, and this is the input we base our decisions on. In essence we are limited to the tools nature has given us, and the natural way in which we make decisions is limited by the quality and accuracy of these tools.
As it turns out, we are caring social animals, but when the rules of the game involve money, this tendency is muted.
Acts of honesty are incredibly important for our sense of social morality. And although they are unlikely to make the same sensational news, if we understand social contagion, we must also recognize the importance of publicly promoting outstanding moral acts.
These results show that when we are acknowledged for our work, we are willing to work harder for less pay, and when we are not acknowledged, we lose much of our motivation.
The first dishonest act is the most important one to prevent.
We may not always know exactly why we do what we do, choose what we choose, or feel what we feel. But the obscurity of our real motivations doesn’t stop us from creating perfectly logical-sounding reasons for our actions, decisions, and feelings.
If we can learn to embrace the Homer Simpson within us, with all our flaws and inabilities, and take these into account when we design our schools, health plans, stock markets, and everything else in our environment, I am certain that we can create a much better world. This is the real promise of behavioral economics.
As was the case with all of our other experiments, we found that people cheat when they have a chance to do so, but not by a whole lot.
Most transactions have an upside and a downside, but when something is FREE! we forget the downside. FREE! gives us such an emotional charge that we perceive what is being offered as immensely more valuable than it really is. Why? I think it’s because humans are intrinsically afraid of loss.
Understand that relativity is everywhere, and that we view everything through its lens – rose-colored or otherwise. When you meet someone in a different country or city and it seems that you have magical connection, realize that the enchantment might be limited to the surrounding circumstances.
Descartes said, Cogito ergo sum-“I think therefore I am.” But suppose we are nothing more than the sum of our first, naive, random behaviors. What then?
If companies really want their workers to produce, they should try to impart a sense of meaning – not just through vision statements but by allowing employees to feel a sense of completion and ensuring that a job well done is acknowledged. At the end of the day, such factors can exert a huge influence on satisfaction and productivity.
Under the school’s disclosure rules, about 1,600 of 8,900 professors and lecturers at Harvard Medical School have reported to the dean that they or a family member had a financial interest in a business related to their teaching, research, or clinical care.”2 When professors publicly pass drug recommendations off as academic knowledge, we have a serious problem.
Once we are painted as cheaters in our own eyes, we start behaving in more dishonest ways.
If I were to distill one main lesson from the research described in this book, it is that we are pawns in a game whose forces we largely fail to comprehend. We usually think of ourselves as sitting in the driver’s seat, with ultimate control over the decisions we make and the direction our life takes; but, alas, this perception has more to do with our desires-with how we want to view ourselves-than with reality.
If you want a social relationship, go for it, but remember that you have to maintain it under all circumstances.