The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone - Especially Ourselves by Dan Ariely


Published in June of 2012

Note: DWD's Reviews received an uncorrected proof advance copy from the publisher (Harper) in exchange for an honest review.

 Dan Ariely's The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty is a fun look at a serious topic - lying. Ariely, a professor of behavioral economics at Duke University, describes his simple experiments and details his results in a light, easy to understand way. His results are often surprising and counter-intuitive.

 For example, it is often considered that people are dishonest because they have calculated the risk of being caught and the reward if they get away with the dishonesty and act accordingly. Ariely demonstrates that this is incorrect and spends the rest of the book showing what conditions are more likely to cause dishonest behavior and what conditions decrease dishonesty.

 This could have been a stupefyingly dull book, but Ariely has a deft touch and makes it a very fun and very quick read.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

 This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone---Especially Ourselves

Reviewed on April 3, 2012.

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