Dan Ariely: The truth about cheating - Forbes India -
►http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/dan-ariely-the-truth-about-cheating_460009.html
In our experiments, we find that a lot of people cheat by just a little bit. In standard economics, cheating is supposedly a straight cost-benefit analysis. People look at the odds of getting caught and the associated punishment, and then cheat when it makes sense to do so. However, in our experiments we find that people do not act strictly according to this model; they cheat only to the extent that they can continue to feel good about themselves and rationalise their actions. You can call it a Personal Fudge Factor, a limit up to which human beings comfortably cheat without feeling bad about it.