Hello Dan. >> Hello Aline >> Welcome to Office Hours. >> Pleasure to be here.

>> Today we're talking about dishonesty. >> Dishonesty, okay. >> And actually today's April Fool's Day. But I don't have to worry about you pranking me during Office Hours, since you've already gotten me today. >> Yes. And last year was very good for pranks. >> Last year was, was very good. >> So what, what happened today? You want to describe it? >> Yeah. I'm not sure that I want to. >> Go ahead. [CROSSTALK] >> I'm not, I'm not like you [LAUGH]. I was very resistant. And I'm not really sure how much I want to go into this on camera. but, you know, I'm super on guard on April Fool's day. >> As you should be. >> As I should be. now, for the second year in a row. >> Just, just, just for the record. So a few years ago, Aline said to people in the lab that the IT Department replaced all the printer drivers with voice-activated Printer drivers which means that you had to go to the printer and talk to it in order for it to print, that was quite good. >> Yes, so you would tell it, [CROSSTALK] you know, your name and print and it would listen to your voice command and there you go. >> And our IT department is so odd anyway that it would have been >> Possible. Yeah. [LAUGH] But then so today we started the day with a Twitter, a fake Twitter war. >> Pete McGraw >> Yep, Pete McGraw and his new book came out today. What was the name of his book. >> The Humor Code. >> The Humor Code, and we had a fake Twitter war. I, we made facts about his book. We told him we found his jokes on midgets and lesbians offensive. >> I don't think we did the little people joke.

>> We didn't do the little people? Okay. anyway, we made all kinds of stuff up, that was quite good. And then something even better happened. >> Something even better? >> At 10:30, one of us got a call. Yes, Eileen got a call and her housemate is, oh, actually she sent me a text with a picture of a police line, do not cross and my house. Our house. And, so, you know. >> So this was like these big plastic things. Crime scene. >> Yeah. Crime scene tape, and so I see that the police are here, there's a bunch of people, they're questioning us, and they need to talk to you too. So, I'm like yeah right, I'm not falling for this, it's April Fool's Day, good try. But she doesn't leave it alone, she keeps bugging me about it, and then she calls me, and she's really serious, and then I'm like, okay, like prove it. Send me a picture of the cop. And so a few minutes later, she sends me a picture of someone who looks kind of like a cop. [LAUGH] He's got a badge, and you know, a little clipboard. And even then, the clipboard looked a little familiar, and I said no, it's April Fools' Day. So, you know, didn't buy that. But then, with a lot more pressure, I ended up going to my house, just, you know, saying, on the record, I'm not being fooled, but I'm going to go anyway. And so I got there. There's the policeman and you know he introduces himself to me shakes my hand, I think it's hilarious I'm going along with it and he says will you come inside we want to question you about some things. There's a chalk drawn man on the floor and. >> Someone was murdered >> Right there, there's a whole scene set up, Really great murder scene and so I, at this point I'm like you know, I have so many things to do today. I have to prepare for Office Hours, I have you know, all of the other work that you have

me doing. And so I'm like alright, let's, let's get this done and so, so I walk inside And the music starts [LAUGH]. He takes off his jacket, and I realize that he's a stripper. >> [LAUGH] Yeah, it was good? >> I, that, that, I did not see that coming. That was definitely. And the chalk there, the whole thing was very nice, no? >> It was very elaborate. >> Very good. >> You clearly put some thought into this. >> Very good. >> And the whole lab actually, was also there in my living room, waiting to see how this went down. And video recording it so, so. >> Maybe we'll post something. >> I don't think we will [LAUGH]. I'll let you watch later but No one else is seeing this. >> I think so far it's been a good day. >> It's been an interesting day, yes, yes. >> Great. >> I'm still kind of in shock. Just, did that really happen today? Was that me there? Anyway, I did learn something about myself. I think I'm much more shy than I think of myself in my mo, when I picture myself in that situation, I imagine myself being much more confident and, you know. Going along with it that was just like, oh, my God, what's happening? Anyway. >> That's a good, good realization. >> Yeah, it is. Anyway. >> Dishonesty. >> Dishonesty. We're here for a reason. Office Hours. What's this all about? The Dishonesty Project? Trying to make a documentary or something? >> Yeah. So maybe a year and a half ago or so you know we've been doing all these lab research on dishonesty and lab research is inherently limited to small crimes. People who can cheat a little bit. But the question was, how, what's the relationship between what we find in the lab and, and big

cheating. And there's no real good way to study big cheating in the lab. So, I said, let's, let's try to interview people. And, one of my favorite cousins, Al, is a film producer in New York. And we've been talking for a while about doing something together. So we said, let's just invite a few people in. Interview them. And film it just to see how it looks like. And we can use it for class. We will see what happens. Anyway, the stories ended up being fascinating. So we filmed another day and another day and another day. And the stories were just great. And you know, you, you look at, at these big cheaters and you see what they end up with. And it's just unbelievable. But you look at the first step they took, and all of the sudden you say yes. Under particular circumstances this is incredibly understandable. Anyway so after we did about 20 of those we decided that there was certainly good material for a documentary. And we're still thinking about how the documentary would look exactly. We have way to much material for documentary but we are cutting and editing and getting more material and it's a, it's a fabulous project and on top of that we decided to do a kickstarter campaign. So kickstarter is a crowd funding platform that basically said here's what we want to do if you are interested help us ,this is what you get. In return the, the movie will be out. If you contribute plus people can get all kind of little chuchkas >> Lot's of fun things. One of them the students know about which is cure all. >> Cure all, >> They were asking where they could get one and The Kickstarter is the answer. >> Cure all is a great communication. This solves everything. >> Yeah. >> It's amazing. >> Yeah, I do have some questions on it. One person asked if it's covered under

Obamacare >> Of course. Obamacare was designed to cover Cure all >> Oh. >> That was the, the first, the first reason to do Obamacare, was that Cure all was not covered before that. >> Yeah. Otherwise, no one would be able to get anything. >> Yeah. >> That's great. Great. yesterday, did you know it was the deadline for signing up for Obamacare? >> I did not know if was the deadline. >> And, related. >> I did not sign, so. >> You didn't sign up? I didn't either. I don't think we need to. >> No, no. >> [LAUGH] Related to dishonesty and Obamacare, actually, is, So there's this deadline and a penalty. But if you, for whatever reason had trouble signing up couldn't make the deadline, there is a button on the website that you can, just click on, it extends, they don't look into it, that you just say, >> Extended. >> I swear that I've had trouble signing up and please don't give me any penalties and I, >> Everything will be okay. >> I pledge that I'm honest Yeah. And you know what, I, I think that because of all the problems with signing up, people would find it very easy to switch, click on this button too much. So, I don't know how many of you realize, but Obamacare is this new approach for people getting health care. And people are supposed to get on the website. And it's been an IT fiasco. Yeah >> And by the way, not exactly unpredictable given the lots of ID fiascoes in general. And but, but, there's a sense in which the government is just incapable of doing a registration form.

>> Sure. >> Online. And I think this, the, the news about it, and the feeling of incompetence, and so on It's probably helping people to be able to justify, to be able to clarify all kind of things that they wouldn't otherwise. >> Absolutely. Have you lied today? Of course, April Fools. Well, excluding that. I'm not sure you actually lied there. Well, so you want some other things I need for April? First? So first of all I woke up my kids, and I tell them that they got a note from the school that because of the snow days, this winter we had a few extra snow days, that they prolonged the school year by a year, by a week, by a week. By a week, they prolonged the school year by a week. And, it took them, like a second and a half to realize that it can't be true, yeah, so that was one thing. The other thing they did was, Christian who's working with me, her mother, Pat, who's also working for me, so I last night one minute after midnight I left Kristen a voicemail and I said, I'm really sorry but things with your mother is just not working out well. And I made up some fiasco that she was involved with and I said, I'm going to have to fire her tomorrow. I'm really sorry to do this to you, but I just don't see an option. I woke up at 4 o'clock in the morning. I had a text from her. Really, like I just wanted to go and hug her. Like really was such a sweet text. And then I called her in the break. >> What was the text? >> Just saying how she's sorry. And, you know, this is so, like really trying to >> Like really accepting it. >> Accepting it. >> Wow. >> And not wanting to do this.

And then At the break in class I called her up and I say I just called her mother, and I fired her, and that her mother can't stop crying. >> Wow, you are so mean. >> And anyway, so, and of course her mother was waiting for her to call. Her mother was, was on it. >> She was in on it, okay. >> Of course, of course. Anyway Kristen called. Her mother reminded her of a prank that Kristen pulled on her quite a few years ago and then she said that all she wanted was for Kristen to call her. [LAUGH] So this was a, so I did lie. >> Mm hm. Alright. Alright. Thank you. interesting. [LAUGH] Also related to that, what what do you think is the relationship between honesty and trust? So, we expect people to lie from time to time and most people are comfortable with a few white lies here and there, but How does that effect trust. >> Very much. So, so I think about trust as a, as a public good. You know, the, there's something called the tragedy of the commons, and they kind of, the standard way to think of the tragedy of the commons is you have farmers, and everybody has a cow. And the cows are grazing in the commons, in the, in the joint area. And if everybody has one cow the whole thing works quite well. But if one farmer has two cows, all of sudden, the rate of growth of the grass and the rate of depletion is not the same. The cows don't have enough food and all the cows suffer and all the farmers suffer and the whole system collapses and I think of trust very much like that. So imagine a society in which people trust each other. And you don't have to lock your house, and you don't have to lock your car, and you don't have to pay for insurance for theft, and you can write checks and you can tell people that you will pay them later, and I mean, the whole thing works quite well, but if

people start betraying their trust, it's not just the particular individuals they are betraying, the whole trust is lower. So for example, I had some students that came from Iran in this particular case. And they said that they were very, very careful when they were in Iran to hire only family members. Why? Because with family members you have higher trust. And sometimes it's like our family members are incapable. Like these were not the best people for the job, but they were trustworthy because they were, they can't escape. They can't disappear all of a sudden. The ties are much larger, so if you think about it, trust is really something that if we all have it, we all benefit and it decreases. Everybody's suffering, if you think about the financial crisis what of the things that happened is that people lost trust in banking, so lots of people when the financial crisis happened took all of their money out and no one put money in. It's very hard to make it work if you don't have the system But when you don't, these, these negative terrible things really happen. Very sad. >> Very sad. Alright. What do you think makes a lie convincing? What are the characteristics of a good lie? And I'm not sure if our students want to know this so they can become better liars, >> Yeah. >> Or, >> So, I think A lie that is convincing the person needs to want to be convinced of that, right? If we think about lie, if, if we want to delude ourself into believing all kinds of things, and the question is what do we want to, to believe? And, you can think about politics as a good example, so. How do people get to keep their political beliefs right? Do we get to listen to particular news and particular information that reinforces

what we believe and so on. So partly it's our desire to believe it. Compliments are probably the best example of that. When you give people compliments, they really want to believe them. >> Hm. >> And they're able to believe them in very easily. And then other things are simpilized, and there's a basic heuristic if something's simple, it's probably more true and if something is very convolusive and difficult and complex and have lots of nuances, it's less likely to be the truth. >> Is that true? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> [CROSSTALK] Are you lying to me? >> No. So I think, I think it's belief plus simplicity. >> Mm-hm, okay. So is it really considered cheating if you don't gain anything or hurt someone? If there are no negative repercussions. So, so I I think so. And I think part of it is that it's really hard to compute when there are no repercussions. So imagine I do something. So, so here's an example. So I when I think about lies that I benefited from in history. So I think about things that my physicians told me. Like, I had this one operation that they told me that it will not be painful to take something out. And I believed them and for a few weeks, I did not fear the treatment. It was useful. So it was just for my benefit. >> Mm-hm. >> But. After that, I trusted them less as well. >> Mm-hm. >> So it's, I think it's very hard to think about a case in which they're always just positive things and not for a long time. Now, maybe the one exception if it's somebody's about to die. Like it's the last lie they will hear and they cannot learn about it later on. Maybe there are cases like this. But, mostly I think It's hard to think

about cases that a lie will have only positive consequences. >> Alright. So you talk a lot about moral reminders for example with the 10 commandments experiment, where you ask participants to recall the 10 commandments. Do you, can you remember any really great commandments that people came up with when they were trying to think of the, Oh, the commandments >> So you know, I, I, I actually will tell you the opposite. We did another little study in which we asked people to tell us which commandments are no longer relevant. And the, the commandment that is the strongest in not being relevant is Respect they father and thy mother. >> Wow. >> Yeah that was not, not important anymore. >> Over like, the, the Lord's name in vein, and really? >> Yeah. >> That's surprising. >> Father, mother. I guess people think they should earn that. [LAUGH] So it's not, it's not given. It's not given anymore. >> Giving birth is not enough? >> Yeah what, what, what was item number? What they, the made up ones? Yeah, I don't, I don't either. >> Yeah. It was so hard to call it. Sorry. >> Okay. Well, we'll get back to you on that. So how about cheating in self-evaluations? Is it okay to is it doing yourself a disservice by being- Start over. Is it right to do yourself a disservice by being honest when you could exaggerate you're great or, or get a better grade just by evaluating yourself higher than you actually are. >> Yeah, so, so I think it's you're talking because you're doing now your self-evaluations? >> I do have a self evaluation to do. [LAUGH] >> Are you asking permission to exaggerate?

>> Should I be honest and say that I'm your favorite employee, or So, so I think it's a case where if you're dishonest and exaggerate your performance, it's good for the short term. You get to think of yourself in better terms. Maybe you'll get a higher pay raise. But I think the long term You're not going to be able to show improvement, necessarily. You're not going to think of yourself in terms of what, what kind of things you're going to improve. So I, I, think, and that's, that's often the case that dishonesty is not a fully calculated thing. It's something that is calculated for short term benefits. And you know cheating in golf is very interesting because when people play golf, they play against a handicap. I don't play golf by the way. But let's say I have a handicap of 90 and you have a handicap of 10. It means >> That means I am better than you? >> Much better. Much much better. >> Okay. It means that if I shoot 80 more than you, 79 more than you, I still win, because of my handicap. So what happen is when you cheat on, in golf you get to have a love score, but you inflate your handicap. You reduce your handicap so it's a little harder to, to win. So let's say you got the handicap of ten because you've been cheating. >> For a long time, you will never win again because of every time this will, this will come to count against you. But, hm, nevertheless people cheat, a ton in golf because we just don't think long term, it's a short term optimization. And misrepresenting yourself in dating is the same thing. Here's what happen. People go online. They said, I really want a date. I want somebody to write me. So they misrepresent themselves overly

positive and then they go for coffee. But you know what? You had high expectation. >> Right. [LAUGH] >> Because how they're represented. Then you meet them, that person, people get disappointed and it backfires. So I think my myopic optimization is Really a lot of the story of dishonesty. >> Yeah, very sad. No, it's never fun to go on a blind date and be disappointed. Okay so. >> Have you ever not been disappointed on a blind date. >> Once. >> Once? >> One time that was great but, you know. >> What percentage is that? I mean I don't go on that many blind dates [LAUGH] So anyway so. [LAUGH] This is a very personal Office Hours. [LAUGH] And it's about to get even more personal. I was amazed when I say this question from a student because I know this is a particular fascination of yours. But somebody asked about pickup lines and, they wanted to know how will they should approach someone that they're interested in? What they should say. Is a pick up line a good question, a good idea, first of all, and, what do you say? What's a good pick up line, for example? >> Yeah. So, so, so, I think pick up lines are you know, we want to study this and I don't have data yet. But, I suspect that it's like lots of other things that people really want to believe stuff. And I think that people underestimate the power of a pick up line. And they underestimate people gullibility or desire to believe. So if you come to somebody and you say. You look at them and you said, you know what, I have never seen anybody with such amazingly beautiful eyes. >> [LAUGH] >> It is just [LAUGH] >> It's good. [LAUGH] I believe it. >> [LAUGH] There you go.

so, so I think that people miss, miss estimate how, how much truth they would attribute to that, because we want to believe all these wonderful things. So I think, go for the extreme, and don't worry about being corny. It's true it will be clear that it's corny and cheesy, but you would. You know, and people will discount it, but if you start this high, then the discount will be very good. I think it also shows something about being courageous, to have a, like a really cheesy pick up line. >> What's the cheesiest pick up line you know. >> The cheesiest pick up line I know is, if I told you you had a beautiful body would you hold it against me. How was that? >> That's pretty good, pretty good. It's just the right amount of cheesy, because it's punny too. You know it's not like the you know what did it hurt when you fell from the heaven, that's too much. >> Yeah, yeah. It's also not specific enough, I think you really want to be specific. because, nobody would delete Heaven. You know, let's talk about something possible. What is heaven? Ok let's talk about irrationality illustrated before we run out of time. >> Which I love. >> You say that every time by the way [LAUGH] I'm also a fan. Let's talk about the public goods experiment. >> Yes. >> We asked a few things. First, we asked how contributions change over time, and what did students think. >> Yeah, and if I remember correctly that the big thing that the students missed was what happens in the last run? >> The last run? >> Yeah. >> We'll talk about that. >> That was the most interesting because what happened at in the condition with out punishment, contribution

basically decreased over time so you started playing the game and you realized that other people were not contributing and contributions went down, down, down, quite dramatically over time. But in a condition with punishment, it started high but it went higher over time. The reason for that is that people recognized what punished can do to a system and it kind of interesting to think about punishment as a. altruistic and b, a mechanism to fix how people behave. So having some kind of punishment is very, very helpful. So the, the increase, but the students did not appreciate, I think, would be the decrease with no punishment and the increase with the punishment of, of sharing. >> That is correct. >> Oh, thank you. >> [LAUGH] What about the prisoner's dilemma? Prison dilemma, yes. The prison dilemma, first of all there was a question of how much people defect or cooperate and the students basically got that right. And then there was this other question of what happens when you have a game with reputation and a game without reputation. And the idea is that as people have they play multiple games with the same, with the same person as they some reputation building a corporation higher. And the students are perfectly correct in both of those estimates. >> Yes they were. Understand both the corporation vs defection plus how much it would increase with reputation. >> Perfectly correct, like to the percent, that's amazing. You guys are going to be very good at producting. >> [LAUGH] Maybe they read the paper. >> All of them though on average. Alright, what about Token Lies? This is with the shredder condition versus the token condition. >> Yep. Again the students were basically, basically right they estimated correctly the tokens would be, would have an effect and increase dishonesty.

>> You're right, you guys are getting too good. Our results are not as interesting. >> No no it's a good mark, If somebody has a good intuition it's >> That means you are teaching them well. >> Well, oh thank you, talking about compliments, yeah. but, but I think there's a, there's a very interesting question of how generalized the intuitions are. So when we teach all kinds of thing. Now the question is, you come to a new situation, to, to what extent this situation can be further away. And people can still have good intuition about how they behave. And this result looked quite good. I mean... >> Yeah. >> Students have good intuitions. We should start testing non students. To compare. >> I would like to do that. >> Yeah. >> in, in order to do that, I think we should rerecord some of your audio when you're not sick. >> Yeah, that would be good. >> Yeah, okay. I have one. >> Maybe it's my sickness that is getting them to have good intuition. They feel my pain. They feel more emotional. >> Mm, it's an empirical question. I think it's pretty unlikely. >> [LAUGH] [LAUGH] What would you say the implications of these results to real world problems and public policy issues might be? >> These, you mean what? [CROSSTALK] >> These oops, so, sorry, not the results of the students' predictions but the actual results. >> Alright. Of which experiment? >> What, what do these studies? >> Are we talking about the public goods? >> The public goods, the prisoner's dilemma. >> Yeah. >> The token it. >> So, so I think For the public goods, and the prison dilemma, I think it's really the importance of reputation and reinforcing mechanism in society. And so when you have something in society

that you might get punished if you behave badly at some point in the far future, that's not going to be very effective. If you think about it, we are social creatures. We grew up in an environment in which the people around us regulated the environment and this is were reputation and punishment comes from and we've basically found out that part of ourselves to the government and we say we will not punish each other, we will wait for some external entity To come, and regulate us, and reward us for good behavior, and punish us for bad behavior. But I think it's less effective. I think we need to think about how do we create social structure that can actually get people to behave better and how do we create reputation and what's the role of things like Facebook and LinkedIn? And so on in this reputation, that this way people could, could react to it. And in terms of the tokens, the, the thing that worries me there is that, we, we are moving to a token society. Actually, we are moving to a society that is much more, much more tokens in, in a following sense. If you think about. Cash and checks and credit cards, and stock, and stock options, derivatives. All of those are creating larger and larger distance. And if you think about dealing with people directly, dealing with people over great distances, over the phone, over the internet from other countries. I think the society will move in toward a, a place where we don't see the outcome of our actions. And that creates an easier and easier time for people to misbehave and think of themselves as good people, so, maybe when we dealt with people directly face to face and people could also reinforce things, that was good enough to basically regulate good behavior but now that we are not having this

environment maybe we need to think differently about. How much temptation do we want to give people to misbehave because the mechanisms that we are used to having are not going to control, so should we have clear regulation, less conflicts of interest I think all of those things are incredibly important and they become more important as distances increase. >> And do you think there is a way of making these. Not very liquid. Not very tangible assets. More tangible? >> I think so. So, you know, if you think about electronic wallets, I think there is a way to make electronic wallets more tangible. I think if you think about people who are, eh Financial advisors. I think there is a way to get them to think about their clients. >> Mm hm. >> In a more tangible way. I think if you, all of those things. I think it's possible. I think we can use technology. Like, you know? Somebody who's, who is, who is the >> So technology is the problem and the solution, then. >> Yeah, well, I think technology is the cause of the problem, but the way you do the technology could either create more distance or less distance. So you know if, if I talk to you to your face it's one thing, if I talk you over distance, but you know, I can still, maybe there still is a way to do something like FaceTime, so it's not necessarily detached and you get more, maybe even more cues about who the person is so. I think the way we've done technology so far, we've increased distance. >> Mm hm. >> But I don't think we have to increase it or at least not as much as we have. >> All right. >> That's a bit optimistic. >> Yes. Very. It's nice to end on a positive note. >> Very. >> On a week of dishonesty. Alright, I believe that's all we have time for.

Thank you so much you guys let us know if you had any good jokes you played today, or played on you, and >> It would be great. >> See you next time. [SOUND] [SOUND] >> [BLANK_AUDIO] >> [SOUND] >> [BLANK_AUDIO]