Book Review: The Honest Truth About Dishonesty

Dan Ariely is a well-know author of many journal articles and the books The Upside of Irrationality and  Predictably Irrational. His latest book is The Honest Truth about Dishonesty. Ariely has a magnificent ability to take the complex world of research and narrate it a way that is understandable. He makes it approachable so the reader can see how it applies to real-world events. That is definitely the case with his latest book.

Cheating and dishonesty are topics that come up now and again. Perhaps it is a conversation with your teenager about an incident at school or paper is missing from the copy machine at work. Through Ariely’s work it is clear that everyone has the capacity to cheat or steal, at least a little bit. In study after study Ariely and his colleagues found dishonesty. It might be the golf score, pencil taken home from work, or fudge on the numbers. It happens all the time. Okay, this is not entirely surprising. So now what?

What Ariely reports is there are circumstances that can make it better and those that make it worse. As we look at our organizations and situations we can make a difference in the level of dishonestly. What Ariely discusses is how reminders of moral standards increases truth telling. This does not have to be religious based, just a reminder that honesty is expected does the trick. One example is putting an honesty statement at the top of a form or document (instead of the usual bottom placement), the placement will improve honesty. Reciting a pledge or oath before beginning an activity will increase honesty. What decreases honesty is a little fib or “white lie.” The research supports that one small slip begins a tumble down hill. This even applies to “knockoffs”. An interesting study showed that people who had knockoff products had a higher tendency to do other dishonest actions. As many of us know, the little slip on the diet is the beginning to a major fall. In a group setting the willingness to cheat appears to be contagious. Ariely’s colleagues have shown in many studies that trust and friendliness can increase cheating. We build creative rationales for our behavior, helping us maintain our positive self images. That being said, people do not cheat as often as the possibility presents itself. Our morals are strong, even if they slip a little now and again.

Ariely ends the book talking about how to reduce dishonesty. The underlying premise is that people intend to be honest, but are tempted. If reminders are placed at the points of temptation the dishonesty goes down. Stress and fatigue can have negative influences, as does social environments. Making cheating and dishonesty more intentional and deliberate will reduce the incidence. If an employee has to open a cabinet to remove paper to take home it will occur less frequently than if the paper was stacked next to the copier. A pledge by the finance staff, signed and dated, just before the annual accounting audit will reduce fudging the numbers. The more effort needed to be dishonest the less likely it will happen.

The Honest Truth About Dishonesty is a great book to remind us of the value in putting temptation out of reach and being diligent about the “white lies.” This applies to our personal and business worlds. I need to talk more with my teenager about honesty.

Is quality management the same as research?

Recently I have been contemplating the difference between quality management and research studies. There seems to be a grey zone that overlaps the two, causing confusion. A number of organizations and the federal government have set expectations that health care providers and organizations need to report on quality measures. The Minnesota Community Measures is an example of a non-profit organization devoted to measuring and reporting on outcomes. Through Medicare the federal government looks at quality measures, using financial incentives with health care providers to encourage them to provide the data. Through the reporting on various measures, these organizations believe that health care will be improved and the cost lowered. The reality of whether this approach works is a topic for another time. What is important to this discussion is the need for health care organizations to understand quality and report the results publicly. However, there seems to be confusion about what this entails; are we doing research or evaluation?

Research is an ” investigation or experimentation aimed at the discovery and interpretation of facts “(Merrium-Webster, 2012). It starts with a problem and ends with a conclusion; it is not a problem solving process (Swanson, 2005, p. 4). That does not mean that research cannot be used to solve problems, this would be advancing the theoretical basis through application. In addition, research does not apply merit or value to the investigation. In an evaluation the worth of something is considered. There is a judgment being applied, a critique of the process or outcome. What makes it confusing are the methods. Both research and evaluation use scientific methods.

Scientific methods include quantitative and qualitative designs. In quantitative designs relationships are examined through variables that are described numerically and analyzed statistically (Creswell, 2003, p. 153). This can be through data collection where participants share information such as blood pressure measurements or visual acuity. For a qualitative design the researcher does not have parsimonious data, instead the observation is in a natural setting where the analysis is deductive and looking for themes and patterns (Creswell, 2007, p. 37). Scientific methods must be used in research, but it can also be helpful in quality management. Here is the grey zone. Collecting data does not make a project a research study. The purpose of the project drives the difference. If the purpose is to establish value, merit, or a judgment of worth it is quality management. On the other hand, if the project is answering a question without regard to solving a problem, it is research. For example, a project that answers the question “which patient visit method is better with regard to patient outcomes?” is a quality measurement. The alternative question, “what is the difference between patient visit methods with regard to patient activation?” is a research study. The first is placing a value statement on the results while the second is discovering a fact.

In the end what really matters is continuous improvement in patient care. The methods support the process and give credibility to the outcomes. We need both quality management and research to achieve the combined goals of higher quality and lower cost.

Creswell, J. W. (2007). Qualitative inquiry & research design: Choosing among five
approaches (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Creswell, J. W. (2003). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods
approaches (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Swanson, R. A. (2005). The challenge of research in organizations. In R. A. Swanson, & E. F. I. Holton (Eds.), Research in organizations: Foundations and methods of inquiry (1st ed., pp. 265-280). San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler.

How plagairism ruined my day ...

I am dismayed. A book that I read recently, and recommended to numerous people, has been yanked from the shelves and is under scrutiny for misrepresentation and possible plagiarism. The author is accused of citing his own work without giving credit to the publication. You can read the article in the WSJ blog here Lehrer. It seems that the research presented in the book is accurate, it is the examples that are a problem. However, any fabrication casts doubt on the entire work. Really?! Why did he do this? This work is interesting and stands up well without fabricating what someone said or didn’t say. Why not give yourself credit?

This situation leads me to think about plagiarism, it isn’t clear that Lehrer did commit plagiarism but his fabrication fits in a similar category. Authors and publishers deserve credit for the work they have done. It isn’t hard and it doesn’t take away from the writer to give credit for source information. Plagiarism takes many forms and can be hard to identify. In the case of Lehrer, the manuscript went through many hands and no one identified the problems. It was a reader who brought the situation forward. Now it is after publication and the damage is done.

I mentioned that giving credit isn’t hard, but it is another step in the process and can be time consuming. Through my work as a team leader for the ACMPE fellowship papers I have the honor of reading a lot of outlines and final manuscripts. Colleagues are working hard to create a document that demonstrates their skill and contribution to the profession. I value that hard work. What is sad is when the authors don’t take that one step to give credit to the ideas and work of others. A common problem is when an author will make a bold statement such as “the majority of physicians do not support the Affordable Healthcare Act”. How does the author know this? Likely the author has not asked all the physicians. Perhaps a survey was conducted and the results suggest that a percentage fit that description. The author needs to cite the survey results. Give credit where credit is due. Perhaps the author only believes this to be true, and so it needs to be stated as an opinion.

A more subtle form of plagiarism is when the author quotes another person’s work but implies it is paraphrased by the way it is cited. This is much harder to find because the reader would have to know exactly how it was originally written. Another version is to quote someone else’s paraphrase of an original work. Whew! This is getting challenging. Fortunately the Internet is capturing an increasing volume of written work and tools are available to match documents with previously published works. Tools are available to check against documents on the Internet. Other tools let you compare documents you have in your computer (using this would have prevented Lehrer from not citing his own work). It is worth the time to check your documents and it is a demonstration of professionalism to respect the work of others.

Whew! I got that off my chest.