Romain Galgani
Louis Bourgeois
Alexandre Thoniel
Anne Françoise
camille Guelfucci
Behavioral Economics
Term Project
Topic : Why do we lie
Fall Semester 2012
Summary
Introduction (topic + Sem)
* Topic
* Standard Economic Model
First Experiment (leads to first factor
chosen)
Second Experiment
Conclusion
Introduction
Topic
When we were only children, we could steal things and not feel guilty about it, until we got grounded by our parents. Since this first punishment, we understood one of the concepts of lying: if I do something wrong and I do no tell anybody, I will not get punished and grounded. But then, what if I get caught? My punition will be even greater, because I stole and then I lied to hide my action. So, each one of us clearly know that we should not lie. But sometimes, the benefit of lying is more important than the probability of getting caught.
Why do we lie? We have chosen this topic because it happens to us all. Lying is something we all have in disgust when the other do, but we keep doing it.
Dan Ariely, in The (honest) Truth About Dishonesty says that each of us want to balance between honesty and dishonesty. Indeed, on one hand, we want to be able to look in the mirror and feel good about ourselves because of what he calls ego motivation. But, on the other hand, we also want to benefit from dishonesty in some situations. That should be impossible, we can do one or the other but not both.
But in fact, thanks to our cognitive psychology and our sense of rationalization, we can do both. We can be honest and dishonest at the same time.
The problem with lying is that our perception of how big the lie is differs from one person to another. Indeed, is it really a lie if it is only a little little one? The answer is different according to personal rationalization. Indeed, the more we are able to rationalize, the bigger the lie can be. (ex: politique ?? crise???)
Another issue with evaluating the “size” of the lie is that today’s...
