The real reason I am so honest

From behavioral economist extraordinaire, Dan Ariely:

Creative people are more likely to cheat and lie. That’s according to a new study out of Duke University. Dan Ariely is a Professor ofBehavioral Economics at Duke and co-author of the study. He says the research shows the ability to think creatively makes someone more likely to use that ability for personal gain…

Dan Ariely: Now the fact that creative people cheat more than others has two things, right? The first thing is that it tells us about some dark side of creativity. But more importantly, because we all have some creative ability, it tells us something about all of our ability to basically cheat a little bit, very quickly tell ourselves a story about it, justify it, and feel good about it.

I’ve always thought of myself as an amazingly uncreative person.  I’ve always admired creativity in others because I feel so utterly lacking in it.  I also consider myself a fairly honest (though not extraordinarily so) person.  I just didn’t realize these facts about me are connected.

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