'That is, low-level cheating may be natural and even productive in some situations; the brain naturally seeks useful shortcuts. But most people tend to follow rules they accept as fair, even when they have the opportunity and a strong incentive to break them.
In short, the move from small infractions to a deliberate pattern of deception or fraud is less an incremental slide than a deliberate strategy. And in most people it takes shape for personal, and often very emotional, reasons, psychologists say.
One of the most obvious of these is resentment of an authority or a specific rule. The evidence of this is easy enough to see in everyday life, with people flouting laws about cellphone use, smoking, the wearing of helmets. In studies of workplace behavior, psychologists have found that in situations where bosses are abusive, many employees withhold the unpaid extras that help an organization, like being courteous to customers or helping co-workers with problems.
Yet perhaps the most powerful urge to cheat stems from a deep sense of unfairness, psychologists say. As people first begin to compete and compare themselves with others, as early as middle school, they also begin to learn of others’ hidden advantages. Private tutors. Family money. Alumni connections. A regular golf game with the boss. Against a competitor with such advantages, taking credit for other people’s work at the office is not only easier, it can seem only fair.
Once the cheating starts, it’s natural to impute it to others.'
- Benedict Carey, 'The Psychology of Cheating.'
Thursday 21 April 2011
The Psychology of Cheating
What Digvijaya doesn't know
Political parties must learn to understand the potency of perceptions. Just look west-ward. Barack reaching the White House had more to do with perceptions than anything else. A little over one-half Americans perceived Barack was the saviour and so got him elected. Now look what that's done to the country.
Perceptions can dictate what happens at the ballots. Digvijaya Singh of the Congress Party in India is one who can learn that lesson. His latest charge against the former Karnataka Lok Ayukta head Santosh Hegde isn't at all smart politics. For it further alienates an already alienated and charged voting public that's reached the end of its tether with corruption. Sure, Santosh Hegde may not be well known around the country, but it doesn't really matter. The voting public will still see it as a politician trying to disrupt the LokPal bill.
Perceptions matters much in politics as in consumption. For a lot of what happens, and who gets voted in depends at times completely on it.
Wish Digvijaya knew. For Congress' sake.
Saturday 16 April 2011
Perceptions first, Learning next, and voila Attitudes follow!
Drudge is gunning after Trump. With clinical precision. The way he's doing it, there's lot marketers can learn from.
Yesterday the headline at Drudge Report screamed, 'TRUMP PRAISES OBAMA; BUSH EVIL'. Today the link to that story remains, What gets added are links to videos that have have Trump berating Obama. Trump in the video (interview with Hannity) says he thought Jimmy Carter was the worst President, but that now its Obama.
How are all these stories laid out on the site? One below the other with the links stating,
YESTERDAY: TRUMP PRAISES OBAMA; BUSH 'EVIL'...
'CARTER WORST PRESIDENT IN HISTORY'...
'BUSH WORST PRESIDENT IN HISTORY'...
'OBAMA WORST PRESIDENT IN HISTORY...
What Drudge is doing is first building 'perceptions' about Trump. With the headline yesterday. He then proceeds to release more material to 'teach' us more about Trump. What he's doing is getting us to know more, thus 'learn' more about Trump. What happens after we 'learn'? We form 'attitudes'. We will now feel Trump's an opportunist. Someone who'll shoot off according to where the wind blows. When Bush is unpopular he will echo that mass feeling, while praising Obama. When Obama sinks, he rats out and turns on him!
Now is that electable quality?
Tell you what, Trump's in trouble.
For marketers, getting consumers to buy means doing exactly what Drudge is doing. Build perceptions, release more material so consumers can learn and ensure positive attitudes are formed. Sooner if not later there'll be a buy.
For Trump, it will be far from a buy. If Drudge hammers away, it'll be the opposite. A non-buy, which means Trump can kiss his presidential ambitions goodbye.
Hey, I ain't sheddin' tears.
Friday 15 April 2011
What the B-School surveys don't tell
The smartest thing about ET's latest B School survey is the timing. ET's made sure the survey is out at a time when everyone else (read Business Magazines) is still to come out with theirs for this year. This means the survey-clutter is minimal and so noticeability will be so much better.
As to the survey its the same old story. As usual, calls to ensure curriculum is global and industry oriented abound. So are calls to ethical business orientation being taught at business schools. Now I am confused about the latter. What does ethical mean in business? Does it mean businesses have to operate by the law? If yes, then its a question of legality, not ethics. If ethical means operating with a social consciousness, I hope it isn't socialism that's being taught at business schools. The way its done at the elite liberal b-schools in the West.
Also such surveys seem to conveniently miss mentioning the input-output cycle that keeps the top business schools in India afloat. Let me explain. The top schools attract the top companies with the best moolah. Which means the best of students wanna go there. Of course the best of moolah go to these schools because the best of talent reside there. Its the classic 'chicken n' egg' scene. Plus how much should the b-school process take credit to the output is debatable. Its like swiss chocolates. The best of cocoa, milk and sugar means you get tasty chocolates. Sure world class manufacturing helps. But is the manufacturing the real reason why the chocolates taste the way they do? Or as I mentioned, is it all those input ingredients?
In closing its pertinent that I mention that no one yet knows for sure what works in business. Now that is not to say the trade can't be taught. Just that claiming the trade's being taught in a superior manner at certain schools may not necessarily be the truth. In fact it could just be a biased myth everyone's comfortable with. To illustrate better what I mean, note what the legendary Theodore Levitt has said about success formulaes being taught by those who believe they know what makes businesses tick,
Nothing in business is so remarkable as the conflicting variety of success formulas offered by its numerous practitioners and professors. And if, in the case of practitioners, they're not exactly "formulas", they are explanations of "how we did it," implying with firm control over any fleeting tendencies toward modesty that "that's how you ought to do it." Practitioners, filled with pride and money, turn themselves into prescriptive philosophers, filled mostly with hot air.
Professors, on the other hand, know better than to deal merely in explanations. We traffic instead in higher goods, like "analysis", "concepts" and "theories'. In short, "truth". Filled with self-importance, we turn ourselves hopefully into wanted advisers, consultants filled with woolly congestion.
I do not wish to disparage either, but only to suggest that these two legitimately different and respectable professions usually diminish rather than enhance their reputations when intruding too much or with too little thought on each other's turf.
How often have we heard executives of venerable age and high repute or entrepreneurs flushed with recent wealth pronounce with lofty certainty and imperial recitude exactly what produces business success? All they really tell, however, in cleaned-up retrospection, is the story of how they themselves happen to have done it. Listen to ten, and generally you will get ten different pieces of advice.
Listen to ten professors, and you'll generally get advice by some multiple of ten. The difference is not that professors believe more firmly in abundance. Rather, besides teaching, professors are also paid to think. hence, lacking direct experience, each is likely to think up several different ways to get to the same place.'
Thursday 14 April 2011
Wednesday 13 April 2011
When the Honesty Show works
There's something cool about a man who isn't scared of admittance. Tell you what, I even think its a mark of super levels of security. Like Dhoni for example. His admittance to the Mohali wicket being misread and so the choice of Nehra illustrates as much the man's confidence in himself as his honesty. It requires courage to be honest. And courage comes easy of you're brimming with confidence. Of course, it also helps if you're 'wired' the brash-confident way. As they say, personality has much to do with your genes and social conditioning.
But then I must caution the use of 'blatant' honesty. Honesty works mostly in one-to-one people scenarios. Because it isn't just the words you speak that cause the impact. Its the way its said and the body language that you put on show. Honesty appears better if it isn't mere words that are used. In fact, your chances of encountering disbelief is greater should it just be words. Your body has to match up!
So what's the point? Just this. Marketers when presented with 'personal' scenarios may use 'honesty' to manage contexts and consumers. Meaning if its a service encounter and you mess up, admit and apologize. Also make sure the body language accentuates your admittance so on the genuineness scale you score sky high. Chances of forgiveness post such 'truthful' performance is almost always guaranteed. The contrast to this is if the scene turns impersonal. For example when its mass media that's being used, owning up isn't such a good idea. Simply because it isn't one-to-one, and so people can't witness the 'complete' penitent human. What they see is performance on screen. And that can't score as much on the genuineness scale.
If you wanna go mass media to correct a wrong, I'd say turn on the PR & publicity machine. Also ensure the PR program schedule doesn't feature a poker faced CEO come on screen with an apology. Tell you what it won't cut much ice. Worse, you'll get spoofed on SNL.
Remember Tiger?
Tuesday 12 April 2011
Socially Normal Sadness
'This growing division between liberalizing social norms on the one hand and ingrained emotional expectations on the other may account for some of the post-coital sadness. After all, depression is most often associated with feelings of disappointment when our expectations are not met. And this is all the more true of sex, which is itself an emotionally and physically charged activity.
The link between shifting social factors and psychological stress is not new. It has been well-documented that some males feel depressed about the changing gender roles in the work place and the fact that women are increasingly the breadwinners in traditional family structures. The changing nature of sexual habits therefore may also clash with traditional norms, thus increasing feelings of anxiety and disappointment when the behavior fails to live up to expectations...
When sex is abused as a drug – purely for pleasure – it creates a similar problem in the individual. Sexual arousal releases the hormone called prolactin, which in women is used to support a biological process – making milk. Men also produce the substance during sex. But when people constantly have sex for reasons other than procreation, the hormonal signals can get crossed. Prolactin gets released in the blood stream to counteract the stimulative hormones released during arousal, and could therefore be responsible for feelings of depression.
When that happens, normal sex begins to lose its luster. At first, like a new stick of chewing gum, it tastes fresh. But the more you chew it, the less flavorful it becomes. After a while it loses any value altogether, and it gets discarded. This feeling of declining worth from so much casual use may well account for some of the post-intercourse depression. If so, a return to more traditional living based on common sense and moral values can help cure us of these strange ills.'
- Armstrong Williams, 'Socially Normal Sadness.'
Monday 11 April 2011
The antidote to Corruption
I am not surprised there's popular anger against corruption in India. But reasons attributed to this outpouring is misplaced. It isn't as you say people rising against the politician, instead its people reacting to what corruption's done to their everyday lives. Meaning, there probably aren't too many government services in India that you can avail without a bribe. Imagine that. Government servants eat taxpayer money when they take home salaries, and then they proceed to bite the hand that feeds by eliciting money from the taxpayer when they need to get something done.
So there, its people fed up with what government has done to their lives that's gotten them to rise up in protest.
Now is this good news? I am not sure. A trip to church last Sunday morning and the number of misconducts that I witnessed on Bangalore roads, and I know the desire to blatantly violate rules is embedded deep in the Indian psyche. Drivers jumping lights, cutting lanes, honking at vehicles at traffic stops, driving with overloaded vehicles, is all too common on Indian roads. Bet there may have been few of those very same people protesting against politicians. Now how ironical is that?
It has to be a corrupt society that throws up corrupt politicians. It can't be such that people are snow whites, but politicians who emerge from amidst them are black sheep. Meaning, to root out corruption requires that people purge their own ways, collectively and individually and decide that the law guides and regulates their own actions. As much as democracy brings with it freedom, it also imposes responsibilities on citizens to abide by what's lawful.
On that count, India and its people have a long way to go.
In the world of consumption too, rules must matter. These rules must be aimed at ensuring its a level playing field for whoever it is that wants to create value for consumers. The business firm that does it best will then be the one that gets consumers. Businesses that survive and thrive must be ones that play by the law and create superior value. Note, such law isn't aimed at nurturing a license raj, instead will promote entrepreneurship free of nepotism and favoritism. Such law at its zenith will be one that nurtures and maintains free markets.
Now that's a revolution that will make all the difference. In rooting out corruption.
Saturday 9 April 2011
Thursday 7 April 2011
The Bill I would fast for
My problem with the Jan Lokpal Bill doesn't lie as much in what the bill intends to do. Instead its the concept of 'regulation' that doesn't cut much ice with me. Regulation, either by the government or representatives of civil society never did any society any good.
Which means I am not about to throw in my towel with a proposed body called the Jan Lokpal. I can't for a moment be convinced anybody's really concerned with MY welfare. And if by any chance someone's promising me my welfare, I'd say, take your wares elsewhere. I ain't the the kind that believes in pipe-dreams!
Now does that mean I believe society has no chance at real prosperity? Of course not! Nations can thrive! But for that they need to introduce the only regulator I am willing to trust! Competition!
Competition is the only chance society has at bettering the lives of its people. And competition can dawn only if we promote FREE MARKETS! As Stossel writes, 'businesses love to have government as their partner. There's safety in it. Why take chances in a marketplace full of fickle consumers and investors, when you can get secure money and favors from the taxpayers? It's an old story, and free-market advocates as far back as Adam Smith warned against it. Unfortunately, too many people think "free market" means pro-business. It doesn't. Free market means laissez faire -- prohibit force and fraud, but otherwise leave the marketplace alone. No subsidies, no privileges, no arbitrary regulations. Competition is the most effective regulator.'
When people talk about bettered lives, what they actually mean is better and affordable access to products and services. Well, that won't come via the government or the Jan Lokpal. It will happen only if we as a society demand free markets.
In closing, note what Friedman had to say about how abuse of power can be prevented in societies, "The strongest argument for free enterprise is that it prevents anybody from having too much power. Whether that person is a government official, a trade union official, or a business executive. If forces them to put up or shut up. They either have to deliver the goods, produce something that people are willing to pay for, are willing to buy, or else they have to go into a different business."
Monday 4 April 2011
With this win, India's arrived? Hardly!
I know it'll be some time before the dust settles and the jingoism dies down on India's historic world cup win. But that I guess is no reason for near senile acts by governments across states in India.
Government dipping into their reserves to dole out crores of money to the victorious cricketers means you and I have had our tax money go to guys who are otherwise stinking rich. It also means something that you and I had to benefit from in the form of social expenditure has now gone up in smoke. Imagine the disturbing irony. People starve to death in this country and rich cricketers are being handed out a crore of rupees here, and a crore there, as if its peanuts that's being distributed. Note, I have zero problems with BCCI paying cricketers whatever they think is their due. Its government money I am peeved about.
But then again I am not surprised. After all, when has government been known to manage our money well? Again, logically they aren't supposed to. It isn't their money, so why should they care? Its time we realized there aren't any free rides in the world we live. That's true even in the consumer world. For everything you think you're getting 'free' at a store as a consumer, there's actually a payback. Either its larger volumes you buy, or its the patronage of a product brand, or even a patronage of a retail store. Remember, nothing's free and mustn't be!
Coming back to cricket, its a pity government does nothing for people who play other sports. Note what Pathrikit reports in the Midday, 'the state of the national sport is well known. Here's an interesting comparison - in September 2007, India won both the Hockey Asia Cup and T20 Cricket World Cup. The cricket team received Rs 2 crore as tournament prize money. BCCI
announced Rs 8 crore for the players. Players received cash awards up to Rs. 21 lakh from their respective state governments.
As for the hockey players, individual greetings were sent by the President of India. IHF had announced an incentive for the team where they would receive Rs 1000 for every goal scored and lose Rs 2000 for every goal conceded. Most state governments did not even send a congratulatory note to the players, forget about prizes and rewards.'
Tell me, what could be more distressing?
Last and not the least, it'll be good to remember cricket's hardly played by a dozen nations. Contrast this with athletes who represent us at the Olympics. They need to beat competition from around the world. Just qualifying for the Olympics I believe is a bigger feat than beating a former colonial power or a few of their former colonies at a game called cricket.
Saturday 2 April 2011
What Love means
If there's one thing that's learnt most in raising kids, its patience. Though kids are wired to be playful and naughty, at times its bound to get to you. And then you snap and hopefully not out of control. Tell you what, I am most disappointed in me if I can't rein in myself, with Jaden. I think there's no excuse to lose it, because kids will be kids. Though let me add, discipline is as important as letting kids be. Note, I've talked about the wisdom of balance before.
Being patient is also an act of love. As Apostle Paul says, 'Love is patient, Love is kind...'. Now patience is common in personal territory. Not so when the scene turns impersonal. Like when its a customer engagement scenario. We are far less patient when we deal with marketers. We demand that we be served, because there's a price we are paying. We strictly see such scenarios as transactional ones and so we insist we get our due. And if it doesn't happen, patience goes out of the window.
Patience is a virtue. Yet it doesn't come easy. For me, its an everyday learning. And I so wanna ace this study, for what better exhibition of love than patience?!
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