How ethical is it to influence customers?
A topical question for Ariely, because his latest book 'Deliciously Dishonest' is about dishonest behavior. "It depends on which triggers you apply and whether you do it in an honest way," Ariely answered. Social proof is an excellent influencing technique online, for example, but not if you start fiddling with the numbers. If you have a website, you are acting ethically as long as the visitors understand exactly what the rules are that the website applies and as long as you actually do what you say. Otherwise it becomes unethical and you abuse the trust of your customers.
Unethical websites
AuctionAriely also gave an example of an extremely unethical website that exploits people’s list to data irrational tendencies. This is the all-in auction or all-pay auction , an auction where every bidder has to pay and where everyone always loses a portion of their money. This is very lucrative for the organizer, but it is very disadvantageous for the bidders. People participate in it – an irrational decision – without fully understanding how disadvantageous this system is for them.
“People are dishonest as well as irrational,” Ariely writes in his new book. It turns out that almost all of us are willing to do dishonest things for our own benefit, as long as we can continue to see ourselves as good people. Even people who believe they live by strict moral standards do all sorts of unethical things.
It is a myth that people from certain countries or cultures are more dishonest. Ariely found that unethical behavior was equally prevalent across cultures and populations. For example, Germans are just as dishonest as Sicilians, and women are just as dishonest as men. As long as it is not too bad and not too blatant, we are all happy to do something unethical every now and then. Downloading movies illegally, taking notepads from work, deducting private expenses from taxes as business expenses…
Dishonest behavior by Ariely
By the way, Ariely himself is very honest about his own dishonest behavior in the book and tells all kinds of stories about it. Very nice to read. When asked if this world-famous scientist himself ever does something irrational on the internet, Ariely answers with some shame: "all the time". For example, he sends e-mails from very strange places, watch the video.