On Feb. 26, the Jefferson Literary and Debating Society hosted Dan Ariely, renowned behavioral economist and author of New York Times bestselling books “Predictably Irrational” and “The Honest Truth About Dishonesty.” Ariely’s research focuses on why people behave irrationally: whereas basic economic theories are grounded in the assumption that all individuals are rational actors in the marketplace acting in pursuit of their interests, the reality is more complex. At the onset of his speech, he asked how many people have procrastinated in the past month, and almost everyone in Jefferson Hall raised a hand. Procrastination is part and parcel of the University experience, yet it is also indicative of doing the opposite of what is best for you: it is basic “irrational behavior.”
The tests Ariely designs are oriented toward irrationality as it exists in market behavior. In a society in which most of us are inculcated with some sort of value judgment concerning what is right and what is wrong, actions like lying, cheating and stealing are socially and internally irrational. So why do we do them?
People do a lot of things for a lot of reasons, but ultimately it comes down to rationalization, concluded Ariely. If you can build a narrative in your head as to why the act is not wrong, then you can do it with abandon. Creative people cheat more because they are more resourceful at finding justifications for their actions
Talk of tests and cheating segued into discussion of university “honor codes.” The mention of the term caused every ear in the room to perk up: that Friday marked the closing of the referendum to reform the University’s honor system. Ariely had run labs with MIT and Princeton students who were told to sign a statement pledging to abide by the honor code before they took a test. This reduced cheating far more than having to sign a pledge at the end (teachers, take note). What was interesting, he said, was that MIT has no honor code, while Princeton has an incredibly strict and detailed honor code all its freshmen are instructed on during a week-long course at the beginning of the year.
Ariely’s labs showed no difference in incidence of cheating between MIT and Princeton students in testing environments. It was not the presence of dire repercussions, nor students’ familiarity with them, that served as a deterrent to cheating. It was that they began thinking about morality. The nuances of the system are not as important as shaking awake a slumbering conscience, so to speak.
During the question and answer portion of the lecture, one student asked the question that must have been on everyone’s mind:
“There’s been a big argument about the honor system here, and changing the single-sanction system to a multi-sanction one. If all it takes is making people think about morality in a broad sense, does that make the argument a moot one?”
In response Ariely relayed an anecdote of a group of Duke graduate students that were shocked after being expelled for cheating on an economics paper. He argued a single sanction system is not fair for the individual student because people don’t make decisions by sitting down and considering how likely they will be caught or the consequences if they do get caught.
Choices are contingent on a lot of factors and stressors, and to expel an individual for an error of judgment is not fair. Yet a single sanction system, according to Ariely, is very good for creating a “campus culture” in which cheating, lying and stealing are the ultimate taboos.
There is something appealing and clean about having a single, hard line between right and wrong. This mindset determines that if you (are caught) cheating you are a “cheater,” and cheaters do not belong on Grounds. While it is true that once you cheat it’s likely that you do it again — something Ariely calls the “what the hell” effect — creating a good-bad binary is dangerous: people learn from mistakes. There are black swans everywhere, and it should not be a feature of any juridical system to dismiss people based on generalizations.
Now that the honor referendum is over, and the single sanction is still firmly in place (by a 1.12 percent margin), it’s worth thinking about what honor seeks to do and what it symbolizes. Relying too much on symbolism is precarious: thinking, for example, that a vote for Bernie is not a vote for a candidate but a vote for some ideal of anti-establishmentarianism and progress will lead to disappointment. But symbols are useful tools for designating meaning and forming opinions that direct behavior and support. For example, though actual gun ownership in the United States is declining, more people support less gun control — not because they want a physical gun, but because, for them, a gun represents things they value, such as independence, safety and strength.
What does the honor system represent? Many people, I think, conflate the single sanction with the honor system as a whole, such that any change is viewed as doing away with honor altogether, and doing away with honor means the collapse of any network of community trust. Neither of those assumptions necessarily hold. The honor system is a system designed to deter and if necessary punish “irrational behavior” — changing it would not detract from that mission. It is not the entire basis of our community of trust: as evidenced by Ariely’s experiment, the community of trust relies on, simply, belief in the existence and importance of maintaining collective trust. Basically, if cheating is wrong in the community, it is wrong not because you will get expelled versus a lesser punishment: it is wrong because it simply is.
I do not dismiss the importance of a student juridical body and the deliberations that come with attempts to run and even reform one. Honor is important, and the conversation must continue to determine how to make a system that judges students fair to those students, keeping in mind love and trust for one’s peers does not depend on the kind of system of student governance. An honor code should not be a cumbersome and untouchable “patrimony” or “tradition,” but a complement to the way in which we would like to live our lives on Grounds.
Tamar Ziff is an Opinion columnist for The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at t.ziff@cavalierdaily.com.
Read More
EDITORIAL: Scapegoating students will not stop hazing
By Editorial Board | 2 days agoInstead of retroactively responding to extreme hazing allegations, we, and especially the University, must begin asking more probing questions about the role of fraternal organizations on Grounds.
EDITORIAL: Celebrating and reflecting on The Cavalier Daily’s independence
By Editorial Board | April 18, 2024Our independence grants us the ability to ask the hard questions and to say what University representatives cannot.
ARRAS: U.Va. must revise the Sexual Assault Prevention Training module
By Aoife Arras | April 17, 2024In addition to its failures in interactivity, the module lacks details specific to the University and discusses key concepts in universal terms.
