Talking about integrity makes it sound like the most amazing thing that everyone should aspire to have an to hold onto. So why do we so often break it? I talked in an earlier post about the fact that a lot of times it starts with a small steps, but how can we rationalize them? A lot of times, people will weigh the perceived benefits of breaking our integrity as being higher than the cost of it. I found a quote from Dr. Dan Ariely, who did a study on cheating and why people do it, that I feel sums this up nicely:
"How can we secure the benefits of cheating and at the same time still view ourselves as honest, wonderful people?
This is where our amazing cognitive flexibility comes into play. Thanks to this human skill, as long as we cheat by only a little bit, we can benefit from cheating, and still view ourselves as marvelous human beings. This balancing act is the process of rationalization..."
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