re: "Factors affecting the decision to act dishonestly" (BP, June 14)
Dear editor,
The results of the research done by the Thailand Development Research Institute (TDRI) confirm what behavioural economics has known for some years: most people, including people who think themselves honest, are in fact easily tempted to dishonesty, but only a little bit. The initial research is perhaps most famously presented in the paper "The Dishonesty of Honest People: A Theory of Self-Concept Maintenance" by Nina Mazir, On Amir and Dan Ariely (2008, Journal of Marketing Research, XLV, 633 - 644). In fact, the TDRI's failure to cite this source sounds suspiciously like an instance of exactly the same sort of dishonesty of basically honest people: the failure to credit a source is plagiarism, a serious crime in academic work.
But academic quibbles aside, the TDRI's research is, nonetheless, a valuable contribution to our understanding of human behaviour, especially as it showss that Thailand is not exceptional. It is safe to assume that all people are prone to dishonesty, that is, corruption, unless the situation they are in is fully transparent and they are accountable. This is why it is no surprise that opaque military governments and other dictatorships are historically far more corrupt and dishonest than even the worst civilian governments in a democracy. As this study by the TDRI confirms, there is no evidence that Thailand is an historical aberration in this regard, nor is there any reason to think that the current set of unaccountable and opaque politicians, already self-amnestied, is an exception to the human norm: the last time I checked, every single one of the ruling Thai politicians were human beings.
Felix Qui
_______________________________
The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.
The text as edited was published in PostBag on June 16, 2017, under the title "Tempting dishonesty" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/1269559/cut-the-car-tax
_______________________________
Reference
- Mazar, N., Amir, O. & Ariely, D. (2008). The Dishonesty of Honest People: A Theory of Self-Concept Maintenance. Journal of Marketing Research, XLV, 633 - 644. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmkr.45.6.633
No comments:
Post a Comment
However strongly dissenting or concurring, politely worded comments are welcome.
Please note, however, that, due to Felix Qui's liability for them, comments must comply with Thai law, and are moderated accordingly.