Why We Lie

Laungayan 1 

Levi Laungayan

Melinda Schroeder

English Composition 101

28 September 2016


     In the article Why People lie, Dan Ariely explanes many different tests that were conducted on 

college students to see how and if they would cheat. They found out 1% of the people cheat or lie a 

lot, 1% of the people don't cheat or lie at all, and the rest of the people (the majority) cheat just a 

little (440). They only cheat a little because they want to find a way to gain something for 

themselves while still being able to feel as if they were a good and mostly honest person (442). 

Cheating is increased when someone else is cheating with them, when they feel like not cheating 

takes too much effort, when they feel like they are already being dishonest so it doesn't matter if they 

cheat a little more, and when they think that they are cheating for the greater good (443). The results 

of one experiment showed that people cheat just a little unless they reminded them ahead of time of 

what type of morals are expected from them. When they were reminded of the Ten Commandments 

and the school code of honor, and when they were asked to swear on the Bible even if they were 

atheist there was no cheating observed (444). This shows that if we want to reduce the cheating that 

costs thousands of dollars because so many people cheat just a little (445). We need to remind people 

of what is expected from them morally before they participate in areas that are loosing money to 

cheaters, such as taxes, car insurance claims and anything else that requires honesty if we want to 

develop more honesty (446).

      Paragraph 10 of Why People lie, shares an experiment that proved cheating increases when the 

benefit was not immediate. When the experiment conducted used tokens rather than actual cash 

people were found to cheat twice as much (443).

     It is important to remember that people are not just going to come into your house and rob you of 

everything you have even if the door is open, but they might come in and "borrow" a cup of sugar or 

something else that is small and seems as if it will not be missed all that much. Taking that cup of 

sugar one time can then lead to the idea of cheating more because, if you are already cheating it is 

easier to think why not cheat a little more? If every person down the hall stole just one cup of sugar 

soon their is nothing left in the house for the home owner. "Locking the doors against the dishonest 

monsters will not keep them out; they will always cheat their way in. It is the woman down the 

hallway, the seet one who could not even carry away your flat screen TV if she wanted to, who needs 

to be reminded constantly that, even if the door is open, she cannot just walk in and borrow a cup of 

sugar without asking" (Kennedy 440).

Laungayan 2

Work Cited

Kennedy, X. J., and Dorothy M. Kennedy. The Bedford Reader. New York: St. Martin's, 

     1985. Print.