Why (Almost) All of Us Cheat and Steal

Behavioral economist Dan Ariely talks about why everyone's willing to cheat a little, why you'll steal a staple from work but not petty cash and whether punishments for cheating actually work

By Gary Belsky

Time Magazine - Business

Originally published June 18, 2012

Behavioral economist Dan Ariely, who teaches at Duke University, is known as one of the most original designers of experiments in social science. Not surprisingly, the best-selling author’s creativity is evident throughout his latest book, The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty. A lively tour through the impulses that cause many of us to cheat, the book offers especially keen insights into the ways in which we cut corners while still thinking of ourselves as moral people. Here, in Ariely’s own words, are seven lessons you didn’t learn in school about dishonesty. (Interview edited and condensed by Gary Belsky.)

1. Most of us are 98-percenters.

“A student told me a story about a locksmith he met when he locked himself out of the house. This student was amazed at how easily the locksmith picked his lock, but the locksmith explained that locks were really there to keep honest people from stealing. His view was that 1% of people would never steal, another 1% would always try to steal, and the rest of us are honest as long as we’re not easily tempted. Locks remove temptation for most people. And that’s good, because in our research over many years, we’ve found that everybody has the capacity to be dishonest and almost everybody is at some point or another.”

The entire story is here.

Mapping Your End-of-Life Choices

By Jane E. Brody
The New York Times - Well
Originally published June 18, 2012

Here is an excerpt:

“People need to sit down and decide what kind of care makes sense to them and what doesn’t make sense, and who would be the best person to represent them if they became very ill and couldn’t make medical decisions for themselves,” Dr. Hammes said.

“If, for example, you had a sudden and permanent brain injury, how bad would that injury have to be for you to say that you would not want to be kept alive? What strongly held beliefs and values would influence your choice of medical treatment?”

Divisive family conflicts and unwanted medical interventions can be avoided when people specify their wishes, he said. His own mother “told us that if she had severe dementia, it would be a total waste of her life savings to keep her alive. She would rather that her children got the money.”

“We help people work through the decision process and involve those close to them so that the family shares in their goals,” Dr. Hammes said. “When patients have a care plan, the moral dilemmas doctors face can be prevented.”

At Good Medicine in San Francisco, Dr. Brokaw and her colleagues have thus far helped about two dozen people explain their goals and preferences, at a cost of $1,500 for each person.

The entire article is here.

Getting Fat and Fatter

By Kim McPherson
The Lancet
doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(12)60966-0

Book Review
Fat Fate and Disease: Why Exercise and Diet Are Not Enough
By Peter Gluckman and Mark Hanson
Oxford University Press

"We need a public debate about what it means to keep markets in their place. And to have this debate, we have to think through the moral limits of markets. We need to recognise that there are some things that money can't buy and other things that money can buy but shouldn't."

Michael Sandel, “Market and Morals”

We live in a world where it is increasingly apparent that markets have all sorts of unwanted consequences, but they remain the bedrock of our civilisation. That we should relentlessly pursue economic growth is unquestioned, while the planet is drying up and we are becoming increasingly obese. And by a dominant political account the way to grow is to liberate the markets wherever we can. Thus the planet nears extinction more quickly and the prevalence of type 2 diabetes increases alarmingly across the globe. So is some kind of consensual good will required, as Michael Sandel suggested in his 2009 Reith Lecture?

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We have yet to discover an acceptable way to make markets properly balance all the pay-offs caused by unhealthy production, one of which is to suffer loss at the point of production commensurate with the harm of causing bad health in the longer term. We are not even close. Good will and responsible citizenship are not, I suspect, going to solve this problem simply because profit and growth trump everything.

The entire review and commentary are here.

As records go online, clash over mental care privacy

By Liz Kowalczyk
The Boston Globe - Health and Wellness
Originally published June 21, 2012

At her weekly therapy sessions, Julie revealed her most uncomfortable secrets: depression, debt, childhood sexual abuse. Her psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital would then type a summary into Julie’s computerized medical record.

With that, more than 200 pages of sensitive notes became available to any doctor who cared for her within the sprawling Partners HealthCare system. She discovered this only when one doctor later referenced the notes.

Julie, a 43-year-old lawyer, was unnerved, then angry. “The details are really nobody’s business,” she said.

But Partners disagrees. Doctors must have a complete picture to make accurate diagnoses, the organization argues. And having different rules for psychiatric records contributes to the stigma of mental illness.

The entire story is here.

Rates of Nonsuicidal Self-Injury in Youth: Age, Sex, and Behavioral Methods in a Community Sample

AUTHORS:

Andrea L. Barrocas, MA, Benjamin L. Hankin, PhD, Jami F. Young, PhD, and John R. Z. Abela, PhD

OBJECTIVE:

The goal was to assess the rate and behavioral methods of nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) in a community sample of youth and examine effects of age and sex.

METHODS:  

Youth in the third, sixth, and ninth grades (ages 7–16) at schools in the community were invited to participate in a laboratory study. A total of 665 youth (of 1108 contacted; 60% participation rate) were interviewed about NSSI over their lifetime via the Self-Injurious Thoughts and Behaviors Interview.

RESULTS: 

Overall, 53 (8.0%) of the 665 youth reported engaging in NSSI; 9.0% of girls and 6.7% of boys reported NSSI engagement; 7.6% of third graders, 4.0% of sixth-graders, and 12.7% of ninth-graders reported NSSI engagement. There was a significant grade by gender interaction; girls in the ninth grade (19%) reported significantly greater rates of NSSI than ninth-grade boys (5%). Behavioral methods of NSSI differed by gender. Girls reported cutting and carving skin most often, whereas boys reported hitting themselves most often. Finally, 1.5% of youth met some criteria for the proposed fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) diagnosis of NSSI.

CONCLUSIONS:  

Children and adolescents engage in NSSI. Ninth-grade girls seem most at risk, as they engage in NSSI at 3 times the rate of boys. Behavioral methods of NSSI also vary by grade and gender. As possible inclusion of an NSSI diagnosis in the fifth edition of the DSM-5 draws near, it is essential to better understand NSSI engagement across development and gender. 

Pediatrics 2012;130:39–45 

The entire article is here.

Editors With Ethics

By Scott Jaschik
Inside Higher Ed
Originally published June 12, 2012

Many of the public debates over ethics in scholarly journals focus on such questions as conflict of interest by biomedical researchers. And various federal regulations (and journal codes of conduct) attempt to prevent conflicts.

Now some journal editors -- primarily in the social sciences but extending to other fields -- are trying to use a new code of conduct to address ethical issues that arise in fields beyond the biological sciences (though there, too), but that also have the potential to tarnish the image of the research enterprise. In the past few months, 88 journal editors have signed on to the principles outlined by 5 other journal editors, and 71 associate editors have signed on.

The entire article is here.

Putting dignity to work

By Charles Foster
The Lancet
Originally published June 2, 2012

A profoundly brain-damaged teenage girl is brought to hospital. The nurses undress her and leave her, uncovered, on a trolley in front of some lascivious youths who are waiting in the Accident and Emergency Department. She seems to enjoy receiving their attention; they enjoy giving it. Is this wrong? Yes it is. But what language describes the wrongness? Certainly the four principles laid out by Tom Beauchamp and James Childress in their classic Principles of Biomedical Ethics (autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice) can't really help, or can't help without straining uncomfortably. Autonomy isn't offended. Insofar as the girl is capable of exercising autonomous thought, she's all for it, and so are the boys. And there's no real harm here, as harm would conventionally be described. One might say that the maxim “Do good” has been violated, but what does “good” mean?

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In answering that question, and in saying what is meant by “good”, it is hard to avoid using words like dignity. And that, for many, is rather embarrassing. Dignity has a bad reputation among some philosophers. It tends to be thought of as feel-good philosophical window-dressing—the name you give to whatever principle gives you the answer you think is right; as a substitute for hard thinking; as impossibly amorphous or (because of its historical association with the notion of the Imago Dei), as incurably theological. Dignity-peddlers, it tends to be thought, are selling metaphysical snake oil.

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Beauchamp and Childress sometimes falter because their principles are second-order principles, derived ultimately from dignity. Sometimes, to get the right ethical answer, you've got to go to the source. Burrow down deep enough into any bioethical conundrum, and you'll eventually hit dignity.

The entire article is here.

Psychologist D. Laurence More surrenders license on charges of sex with two patients

Psychiatric Crimes Database
Originally published on June 11, 2012

On November 16, 2011, D. Laurence More, M.Ed. permanently surrendered his psychologist’s license to the Pennsylvania State Board of Psychology.

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More admitted that, approximately one month following termination, he commenced a personal relationship with the wife and further admitted that approximately two to three months later, he commenced a sexual relationship with her.

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More engaged in a sexual relationship with a different patient without first waiting two years after terminating professional services, as required by Board regulations.

The entire story is here.

Secrets And Electronic Health Records: A Privacy Concern

By David Schultz
The KNH Blog
Originally published on June 11, 2012

Does your orthodontist or opthamologist need to know what you tell your psychotherapist in order to provide you with quality care? In the age of electronic medical records, a whole range of health care providers may have access to this information whether you want them to or not.

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Here’s what many say is the problem: If a mental health specialist types up his or her notes from a therapy session and puts them into a patient’s electronic medical record, that file can be shared with any doctor the patient sees within their health system. And, because of a loophole in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, there’s nothing a patient can do to stop this from happening.

Many mental health professionals, who consider their patients’ privacy and confidentiality to be sacrosanct, find this appalling. But often times, the decision of how they file their patients’ records is not up to them.

The entire blog post is here.