Annotated Bibliography

1. Ariely, D. (2008). The Context of Our Character. In Predictably irrational: The hidden forces that shape our decisions (pp. 217-230). New York, N.Y.: HarperCollins.
   
   In chapter 12 of Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational, he discusses how our moral compass can be skewed when we deal with items rather than cash. I am going to replicate an experiment that Ariely uses in his book. His experiment was to get a 6 pack of coke and some cash and leave them both in a college dorm room and see which goes missing. His results were that people were more likely to steal the soda rather than the cash. I am going to differentiate my experiment to see if people are more likely to steal during the week vs. the weekends.
   
2. A. David Redish, Steve Jensen and Adam Johnson (2008). A unified framework for addiction: Vulnerabilities in the decision process. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 31, pp 415-437 doi:10.1017/S0140525X0800472X
   
   In the journal article, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, David Redish writes about the neuroscience behind human decision making. He discusses 10 key components as to why people may perform maladaptive behaviors. He describes how the brain and how we are human beings and our conscience is there to help up make the write decisions, even though we have that we still make faulty decisions.
   
3. Gino, F., & Galinsky, A. (2012). Vicarious dishonesty: When psychological closeness creates distance from one’s moral compass. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 119(1), 15-26. Retrieved April 17, 2015, from Science DIrect.
   In Gino and Galinsky's article they discuss the psychology behind a person mind and how their moral compass is skewed. In the journal they mostly discuss the psychological connectedness someone feels when they are being dishonest. They also bring up the point of how someones moral compass gets altered due to selfishness and selfishness could be a potential reasoning for dishonesty.
   
4. Bloomquist, J. (2010). Lying, cheating, and stealing: A study of categorical misdeeds. Journal of Pragmatics, 42(6), 1595-1605. Retrieved April 17, 2015, from Science DIrect.
   
   Bloomquist's study is about how lying cheating and stealing are all connected and people who are willing to do one are more likely to do the other two as well. So if one is willing to lie they are most likely willing to cheat and steal.  This can be incorporated into my paper through the experiment I am going to perform in my dorm with the soda and cash.
   
5. Effects of deindividuation variables on stealing among Halloween trick-or-treaters.Diener, Edward; Fraser, Scott C.; Beaman, Arthur L.; Kelem, Roger T.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 33(2), Feb 1976, 178-183.http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.33.2.17
   
   In this study the researchers are looking at the variables involved with children stealing Halloween candy. This relates back to my experiment so hopefully there will be a correlation in my expeiment with students stealing the soda just like he correlation of children who steal the candy.
   
6. Niven, K., & Healy, C. (2015). Susceptibility to the ‘Dark Side’of Goal-Setting: Does Moral Justification Influence the Effect of Goals on Unethical Behavior?. Journal of Business Ethics, 1-13.
   
   In this article Niven and Healy discuss how  a persons goal can compromise their ethical behavior. So if their goal is to pay through college they may steal to compensate for that even though they understand that it is morally wrong. Their need and goals subside their ethics and people are more willing to be dishonest. This relates to my essay as I will be discussing peoples morals and how they still cheat and steal. 

Ariely Sources

For this paper I am going to replicate an experiment originally performed by Ariely. In this expeirment I will go into the dorm lounge and place a few sodas in the fridge and some money in a bowl on the table. I will see how much cash and how many sodas are taken each day over the course of a week. I wonder if people will have more incentive to take the money as time continues to past.

The first journal article I chose was, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, here David Redish writes about the science behind human decision making. He discusses 10 key components as to why people may perform maladaptive behaviors. I could use this science in my paper to see what goes on in the brain to make people steal/cheat and then relate it back to my experiment.

Secondly I chose a book called, How We Decide, by Jonah Lehrer. This book basically explains how we make everyday decisions. The three main applications are how we problem solve, make decisions and plan. Its interesting to me that how we decide between what we want and what we need and I think that this correlates nicely with Ariely's ideas when it comes to cheating and stealing. Then I will analyze it further to see how it correlates with my own experiment.

The last source that I decided to use for this project was a book by Sheena Iyengar called, The Art of Choosing. In the book she describes how our choices make up our lives. So what we choose to do or not do makes up who we ware and how we live. So if we chose to cheat/ steal does it affect our whole live or just one decision? I can read further to see how bad decisions influence us and correlate it with Ariely and my experiment to tempt people to steal with soda and money.

Ariely study

I am curious about  Ariely's study in chapter 12. He is curious as to how people are more likely to steal/cheat when it's an item other than cash. 

If I were to develop an experiment to see if people were more likely to steal products rather than cash I would have cash available and another product like candy. Leave it in a room where the subject can take it at anytime without being seen and then after one day, 3 days and a week and see how much is gone at each time period. This will show that if a person has more time to be tempted would they be likely to steal the money too? 

Chapter 12 Ariely

In chapter 12 of Ariely's, Predictability Irrational, he discusses our morals when it comes to stealing. He brings up the idea of how non monetary currencies can affect our perceptions of stealing and our morals. He tests' this idea through an experiment. He uses two separate fridges in a college dorm, in one fridge there was a 6 pack of coke and in the other fridge there was 6 dollar bills. The results was that the soda was all gone and the money was all there. This shows that individuals rather steal/cheat items than cash, maybe it's perceived as less severe to steal a replaceable soda than someones money that they worked for. Another idea that Ariely tested through an experinment is online transactions. His results were that people are also less likely to steal or cheat in person than they do online. This is something very common, when a teacher assigns an online homework assignment the student is a lot more likely to cheat that a hard copy assignment. Ariely concludes by saying people need a certain amount of distance from cash to avoid feeling guilty, so being online or in the form of other items makes it easier for people to steal/cheat.

According to Ariely, cheating is easier when it is one step removed from cash because it make individuals feel less guilty, cash makes us consider our actions more, just like how signing a wavier can make you consider you actions not to cheat. He uses a few examples to explain this, one is it would be easier to steal a pencil but to steal 10 cents to buy the pencil would be more difficult and the person would feel morally wrong. I personally can agree with the example above I have stolen tons of pencils over the course of my years from peers, tables, etc. and I've had tons of pencils stolen from me, it's not a big item that I would get upset over if I don't have. But if I stole cash from someone I would feel so guilty because its someone else's hard earned money and if stole what they worked hours for in an instant I would feel so ashamed. It makes sense that identity theft is on the rise in America is because it is happening online over the internet, people are more likely to steal someones credit card information, or personal files like that than try to physically rob a person and take their files and credit cards. By not seeing the person and having the computer as a sort of mediator it is allows the person to feel less morally wrong. Ariely also provides some example of how companies legitimately steal from their customers. One example is the banks double charging individuals so when they are in debt get charged more. It doesn't look like stealing but it is, people getting charged for purchases they didn't buy.

Ariely's Chapter 11 Predictability Irrational

In chapter eleven of Predictability Irrational Dan Ariely discusses the role of honesty in our society. He states that lying and cheating can disturb our moral compass, what he means by this is that it could affect our emotions and how we go about the world. Ariely brings up to forms of dishonesty, there is white collar theft and robbery theft. White collar theft would be like stealing a pen from the office, while robbery theft is when one is planning their dishonesty to lets say rob a bank. An experiment was performed at Harvard University and a few other universities. What the experiment did was separate students into 3 different groups and allowed them to teach and get away with it. WHat the results showed were that people who knew they would get away with it were more willing to cheat than those who weren't sure if they would get away with it. Another experiment that was performed was to test peoples morality. For this experiment those individuals given the test and were told that they could cheat had to first sign an honor code. The results for this showed that showed that those who signed the code did not cheat, while others who didn't sign the moral code were more likely to cheat. Ariely concludes by stating that we all get the urge to be dishonest but we should acknowledge that and take the path of honesty.

Ariely states that honesty is the best policy because it is what keeps a person sane and if each individual was honest it would make everyones lives run a bit easier. To curb dishonesty in our lives we could be laws taken like honor codes or oaths we sign, this way people feel morally obligated to be honest. When people are reminded of religious values or signing a moral statement they stop cheating completely because it goes against their practices and if they cheat they wouldn't only be lying to one they would be lying to themselves and potentially to God. Students deal with all forms or temptations to be dishonest on a daily basis. Some temptations include, cheating on a test, or borrowing homework or stealing food from the kitchen. Some small transgressions that students may commit and rationalize would be to steal a hair tie from someone who has a lot or stealing a pencil because you know your going to need it in the future. These items are both small and easily replaceable I think thats why people steal it without feeling guilty.

Dan Ariely's TED Talk

Intuition leads to misinterpretation even though its right, in visional illusions its easy to see the mistake, but in cognitive illusions its harder to distinguish. In cognitive situations we feel that we decide our own decisions, but in reality the people who design the form enable your decisions. We simply have an illusion that we make a decision. One example is by adding a third option thats not as attractive to make the other options look better. The options were all inclusive Paris, all inclusive Rome and Rome without coffee. Rome with coffee is superior to Rome without coffee, so people are more willing to buy Rome with coffee because the option includes more like "a better deal." Another example is two have two people attractive Tom attractive Jerry and unattractive Jerry, when this happened viewers were more likely to pick attractive Jerry. But when it was attractive Tom, attractive Jerry, and unattractive Tom viewers were more likely to pick attractive Tom. If I were to repeat that experiment I would create two options for donating money and if I add a third that wasn't a good cause, the people willing to donate would donate more to the good cause. Its interesting how stores, businesses and retailers use this tactic to get individuals to buy their products by having comparable products.

Chapter 2 of Predictability Irrational

In chapter two of Predictability Irrational, Dan Ariely explains pricing and how consumers pay for these prices through an example of pearls. He first brings up this idea of anchoring, anchoring to humans is like imprinting to animals. What anchoring means for pricing is that it is the set amount we are willing to pay, the initial price that we see for an item is what stays in our minds. Another point that he brings up is the idea of behavior and self herding. Behavior herding is when we assume something is good or bad on the based on other peoples experiences with it and self herding is our own previous experience that can determine how we buy an item. The last concept that was brought up were "illogical forces". Illogical forces are what attribute to our emotions and what could skew our buying at overly high prices. Continuing throughout the chapter Ariely provides examples of how not to get influenced by these illogical forces and thus eliminating irrational decision making.

Anchoring is the first price we see on a new item, and we "anchor" that price in our heads so we can compare it to other prices. While arbitrary coherence is when we see a price it is arbitrary and we will use it compare present and future prices. If a college student saved $3000 to buy a used car they would have that price in their head and they would acknowledge don't have the money to spend on extras like electronics and clothes. They would recognize that the money they saved up for a car is worth a lot and was difficult to accumulate, so they wouldn't spend a lot of money on a quick fix like a new electronic or a shopping spree. Retailers and businesses are very aware of anchoring. This is how they get consumers to pay higher prices for products that seem different. One example of this is Starbucks vs. Dunkin' Donuts. Starbucks creates an environment for the consumers to come there over DD because they offer more choices, with special names, and a cool poetic environment. All of these lead to consumers feeling like they are getting extra so they willing to pay for the "extra incentives." Lastly the fallacy that falls behind supply and demand is that they aren't the true driving factors behind market prices. In reality anchoring and arbitrary coherence are what drive market prices up and down.