Dan Ariely "Our buggy moral code" TED Talk
The TED Talk “Our buggy moral code” shows how people tend to have flaws in their daily lives that result in them cheating and doing other bad behaviors. Dan Ariely shows how people tend to act on their flaws in everyday life and relates it to concepts like the stock market and medical practices.
Ariely focuses much on the concept of cheating in everyday life. He describes how he performed various experiments to see how much people would cheat. For example, in one of his experiments, he gave people 20 math problems to solve but did not give them enough time to finish. The people would get as many dollars as they had answered questions correctly. In one group, he had people turn in the paper, while in another group, he had the people shred the papers and tell him how many questions they got correct (there were other groups that he had also experimented with, but these show the basic idea of what he was doing). Not surprisingly, the people in the group that shredded the papers appeared more prone to cheating. Initially, he thought that this was based on a cost-benefit ratio of the probability of being caught, what was at stake, and what could be gained. After all, in his previous experiment, it appeared that many people cheated just a little bit, rather than a few people cheating by large amounts. To test this, he did an experiment in which people had higher chances of cheating and getting more. He found, however, that people continued to cheat just a little bit. He hypothesized that people wanted to feel good about themselves and that they cheated enough so that they could gain something but not feel too bad about themselves. This appeared to be true, as people were less prone to cheating when trying to recall the Ten Commandments versus trying to recall ten books they had read in high school, and people were more prone to cheating when someone from their school clearly cheated versus someone from another school. These results appear to show that many people are more focused on pride for themselves than they are of actual morals and doing what is right. Whatever the case, this cannot be good for society. In addition to cheating, Ariely also highlights the fact that many people find it difficult to test whether or not their intuitions are right. He talks about a time when he was recovering from a burn, in which the nurses had to remove many bandages from his body. The nurses removed the bandages in a quick but painful way as opposed to a slower but more endurable way, despite his protests. Ariely later did experiments on this concept and found that many people preferred lower pain levels and longer durations than higher pain levels and shorter durations. When he told this to his nurses, one of the nurses admitted that she thought her intuition was correct and that she was also focused on her pain in removing the bandages. She did not want his intuition to be correct. It is understandable that people think that their opinions are correct, but it is a problem that many people selfishly refused to see other viewpoints. This may easily lead to problems in society. The concepts that Ariely focuses on are easily connected to the American Dream and the Global Dream. Ariely highlights the fact that cheating is harmful to the stock market, which affects society as a whole and people in general. It is also likely that the fact that the top 20% in America have fourteen times the amount of the remaining 80% (Sawyer) is partially because of dishonesty, aside from just greed. In the case of not willing to challenge one’s own intuitions, this can prove detrimental to people, sometimes in severe ways. For example, two detectives may have different ideas about trying to catch a criminal. If one’s idea would ultimately lead to a sooner arrest, but the other refuses to accept it, the criminal would likely remain on the loose longer. In less extreme examples, a person might have an idea that could improve a business, but if the boss refuses to listen to it because he has a different viewpoint, the results could be harmful to the business. Moral flaws have a great effect on both the American Dream and the Global Dream. I think this speech was well said for the most part. I agree that humans have many flaws that they act on. As a Christian, I believe we have a sinful nature that we choose to act upon. I do wish, though, that Ariely had talked more about the effects that flawed morals have on society, as he did not do this to a great degree. Overall, though, I think this speech was well said. |