"Why We Lie" Blog Post #1
Emma Anderson
Melinda Schroeder
English 101
28 September 2016
Summary:
The Article “Why We Lie,” by Dan
Ariely, is about multiple experiments that were conducted to delve into the big
question of why people lie and what pushes them to cheat. Dan Ariely’s tasks are called the “Matrix
tasks”. These experiments were mainly focused on college student, some who knew
they were being tested and some who did not. These experiments consisted of 20 different
matrices that each person had to solve within 5 minutes. The students were
payed for every matrix solved. They were given an opportunity to cheat because they
corrected their own answers. Everyone has the option to be dishonest or cheat. It depends soley on wether or not a person feels
the need to take that risk to cheat. This article explores why people cheat and how
our “small” dishonest tricks have a bigger impact on ourselves and culture than
we realize.
Paragraph #10:
The theory that the majority of people cheat,
even just by a small amount, leads us to belief that it just might be
acceptable to be dishonest. The question
is; what drives us to cheat a little or a lot?
Quote:
“Everybody does it”, refers to the
fact that the author believes most people justify their cheating or lying off
of the wide spread thought that everyone cheats. People should never base their
actions on what everyone else does. People should base what they do on whether
they feel their action is right or wrong. The nature of cheating can become viral,
and mesh into the way one thinks and acts. If cheating and lying go unchecked,
a person’s morality becomes skewed and cheating becomes the norm (Ariely 443).
