In the "Irrational Behavior" online course I'm taking that inspired this article, one of the things said is that most people cheat a little and most of us still think we are basically honest people. The way we make these two things exist simultaneously is to use rationalization in which we explain to ourselves that it's not really cheating because . . .
In the two posts so far following the article, one used the rationalization that he'd take the extra card in order to save people behind him from wasting their time. The other said that casinos are basically unfair anyway so this is just "partial catch up."
I've oversimplified the earlier posts. And I'm certainly not criticizing them. These are simply ways each person justifies certain actions to himself. We all do this.
It turns out the most creative people (those who can come up with the most rationalizations for any given "dishonest" act) use this skill and are more dishonest than those who aren't so creative. We all know some very creative people!
There are people (including Anthony Curtis on last week's GWAE) who claim that whether they won or lost or whether they had to stand in line wouldn't compromise their basic morals. Possibly so. It's also sometimes different when we are sitting back hypothesizing and when we are in the heat of the moment!
Bob
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