[HN Gopher] Selection effects on dishonest behavior
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Selection effects on dishonest behavior
Author : mcguire
Score : 60 points
Date : 2021-03-31 14:47 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (journal.sjdm.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (journal.sjdm.org)
| apples_oranges wrote:
| Broken Windows theory. People tend to do what they consider
| normal in an environment. Change the environment and the people
| change. Either because they, in this case the cheaters, change
| their behavior or go to another environment.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| What is very interesting because the original Broken Windows
| theory is mostly discredited nowadays. So, this variation
| standing is informative.
| caddemon wrote:
| I think the discredited part is mainly that presence of small
| crimes can increase likelihood of major crimes. There's still
| pretty good evidence that more vandalism, run down buildings,
| littered streets, etc. can increase the amount of nuisance
| crimes. So sure it's not going to cause more murders, and
| policy-wise it doesn't make sense to over punish minor
| crimes, but community cleanup could still be helpful for
| reducing things like petty theft.
|
| Which I think is consistent with this, having shitty
| surroundings leads people to treat their surroundings
| shittier is pretty analogous to being surrounded with
| cheaters making people cheat harder. The leap is that this
| will somehow escalate to worse/more violent crimes.
| nabla9 wrote:
| To change the society, change incentives.
|
| "Never, ever, think about something else when you should be
| thinking about the power of incentives." -- Charlie Munger,
|
| https://fs.blog/2017/10/bias-incentives-reinforcement/
|
| The Psychology of Human Misjudgment https://fs.blog/great-
| talks/psychology-human-misjudgment/
| caxsum wrote:
| Highly relevant in the context of open source project
| infiltration.
| 3np wrote:
| Elaborate.
| davesque wrote:
| Not sure if the article mentions them, but a couple environments
| I regards as "cheating-enabled":
|
| * Almost any social media platform
|
| * Online product reviews
| Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote:
| Advertising? Politics? Regulations?
|
| Advertisers are better at advertising their products then
| actually advertising, though teasing out how much of that is
| caused by awful companies with garbage products is tough.
|
| American politics is a pay for access game. The majority of
| politicians have no power, instead the powers been concentrated
| in party leadership who steer the ship swherever their backers
| point.
|
| Regulations can be great. Smog, asbestos, lead, BPA, PFOA, are
| truly awful. The problem is we need to fill cemeteries for
| every major piece of legislation because those causing the harm
| are allowed to fight in bad faith against regulations with
| teeth or that could reduce profits.
|
| Our world doesn't need to be this harmful. Profit and growth
| are characteristics of cancer, and that's exactly how humanity
| is acting towards the earth and each other.
| souldeux wrote:
| The study is a bit more interesting than this title suggests.
|
| >An intervention aimed to discourage participants from choosing
| the cheating-enabling environment based on social norm
| information did not have the expected effect; on the contrary, it
| backfired. In summary, the results suggest that people low in
| moral character are likely to eventually dominate cheating-
| enabling environments, where they then cheat extensively.
|
| In other words: we tried to tell the cheaters "you wanna cheat?
| fine, you can only play with the other cheating pieces of crap."
| The intent was for this to be a punishment, but it turns out they
| like it. The strategy backfired.
|
| Don't dismiss this as a "well duh" thing, there's cool stuff in
| here!
| watwut wrote:
| That is because the "good people leave" is not punishment, it
| is often reward for cheaters. They got rid of who they see as
| risk-averse petty nitpicking loosers.
| Kranar wrote:
| Sure it's cool but I don't see what's unexpected about it. So
| long as the reward is the same and the cheating is mostly
| effortless, I don't see why a cheater would prefer to play
| against honest people and have to compete against genuine skill
| versus a cheater competing against other cheaters.
|
| If the reward were a function of how honest the
| environment/population was and cheaters still preferred the
| dishonest environment, then I'd find that to be interesting...
| but if the reward is mostly the same regardless of the nature
| of participants, then I don't see why cheaters would prefer to
| play against honest individuals.
|
| I also don't think this finding generalizes very well, for
| example when cheating still requires a great deal of effort on
| the part of the cheater. For example take a competitive sport
| that is notorious for cheating, cycling. I'd be surprised if
| cyclists who take performance enhancement drugs would prefer to
| compete against other cyclists who use those drugs compared to
| competing against cyclists who don't use drugs.
|
| Find me a study that comes to that conclusion and I'll be a lot
| more interested.
| [deleted]
| kazinator wrote:
| Let's substitute cheating with something else in your sentence.
|
| "So you wanna compete as a road runner? Fine, you can only run
| with other competitive runners."
|
| See where that is going?
|
| Cheaters don't care about other cheaters being there; they
| either think they can out-cheat them, or else that the other
| cheats don't matter: there is enough of a bonanza there that
| all cheaters can win, and in fact more is left if non-cheaters
| are eliminated.
| gryn wrote:
| wait, but no. the goal of the runner is probably to get
| better at running not just winning whatever the cost.
|
| someone who wanted to win no matter the cost even if it made
| them over the long run worse at running would probably find
| way to disqualify better runners or some other methods that
| doesn't necessarily involve enjoying running.
|
| the difference between what you're describing and the the
| scenario is a difference between instrumental and intrinsic
| goals
| kazinator wrote:
| The intent was to create an analogy between the motivation
| to cheat and some other motivation (not involving
| cheating).
|
| Let's assume that the goal of the cheater is likewise to
| get better at cheating, and that cheaters intrinsically
| enjoy cheating.
| lolc wrote:
| Rosy ways to explain this result:
|
| 1. Some participants are able to predict the result but when they
| are forced to act on it beforehand the entanglement collapses.
|
| 2. The negative correlation with charity spending is because the
| cheating participants know a better charity that urgently needs
| the money. Defrauding researchers is morally justified in this
| case.
|
| Seriously though, that was a very interesting read.
| umvi wrote:
| I always thought it would be fun to have an "escape room" style
| fake testing center where cheating is allowed and encouraged and
| the goal of the game is to pass the test.
|
| The "tests" administered would be impossible lorem-ipsum style
| tests, but you would have access to the answer key beforehand,
| and the goal would be to pass the test without your cheating
| method being detected. Obviously memorizing the entire answer key
| is the only foolproof way to cheat, but if you limit the amount
| of time you can see the key, it would force more innovative
| methods. For example having a partner with the key transmit the
| information to you somehow. The testing center will try to thwart
| you by making you take the test in a faraday cage, no phones,
| etc.
| gryn wrote:
| wasn't this the premise in Naruto's written exam test if I
| remember thing correctly?
|
| The teachers expected them to cheat since the exam was made
| very hard on purpose and the only ones who got eliminated were
| the one who were caught cheating. they were testing their
| spying abilities not academic knowledge (without the
| participants being told so beforehand).
|
| and if my memory is not failing me, they even placed fake
| participants in the exam room to be the source of the correct
| answers.
| PeterisP wrote:
| Here's some work on "security mindset" teaching with a
| cheating-expected test where students have to write down 100
| digits of pi.
|
| http://www.rumint.org/gregconti/publications/KobayashiMaru_P...
|
| And a remote teaching version during covid-times
| https://daveeargle.com/2020/09/11/kobayashi-maru-proctorio-v...
| lisper wrote:
| So cheaters tend to gravitate towards situations where they can
| get away with cheating. What a shocker.
| taeric wrote:
| I wonder how well this transfers. Instead of cheaters, bullies?
| Liars? General opportunists?
|
| My gut is it transfers easily. Not clear on what to do about
| it.
| baq wrote:
| always nice to have the data to confirm the hypothesis.
| Gravityloss wrote:
| Yes, it's the system, not the people. Same why laws matter and
| not corporations "playing nice".
| dandanua wrote:
| It's the system, but not the system of laws. If leaders and
| elites constantly shit on laws because they think their
| status allows them to - then the laws won't make people
| honest. Because there are thousands of ways for dishonest
| behavior that doesn't break any laws.
| mc32 wrote:
| I see it slightly differently. It's cheaters feel that even
| among other cheaters they feel they have a better shot and
| will avoid the meritocratic choice.
|
| So it's a bit of "why we can't have nice things". It's not
| the system as much as people taking advantage of social
| permissivity for individual benefit.
| Gravityloss wrote:
| A good reply, it goes to a deeper level and I agree.
|
| Maybe also related to gambling. People who feel they don't
| otherwise have a shot at getting something better or
| competing.
| watwut wrote:
| > It's cheaters feel that event among other cheaters they
| feel they have a better shot and will avoid the
| meritocratic choice.
|
| Cheaters think they are the meritocracy. They think they
| are smart and resourceful.
| mc32 wrote:
| Maybe? To me it seems they either don't have enough
| $ability to do things the accepted way, or they want to
| do things an easier way, so one way for them to do well
| is to use a shortcut (cheating), either for lack of
| ability or out of laziness (not wanting to put in the
| hard work). But, it's not all bad. 'Cheaters' the lazy
| type are innovators, they look to make things easier to
| achieve, so they will employ automation and the like to
| get out of drudgery, which leads to discoveries and
| progress, right?
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Define "cheating".
|
| Is it cheating or just being savvy if a farmer wires his
| new building to the 1999 NEC instead of the 2021 NEC
| since a copy of the 1999 one is $20 on eBay and omits
| some grounding requirements that are onerous for
| outbuildings.
|
| Is it cheating or just following the spirit of the rule
| if a middle manager avoids a problem be skipping the
| process-required approval for a time sensitive change to
| something when it's exactly the kind of thing the higher
| up would approve in a heartbeat?
|
| Cheating vs non-cheating isn't a binary thing. People
| have degrees to which they're willing to fudge stuff.
| watwut wrote:
| I don't think there is dichotomy between ability and
| cheating. The dichotomy is just too make us feel better
| if we lose against cheater.
|
| Highly skilled people cheat to get little bit more
| advantage against other highly skilled people. And it is
| harder to catch them, because the ability demonstrated in
| some situations means everyone will go out of way to
| excuse them.
|
| Highly skilled people cheating also means that only
| cheaters can rise to the top of competition.
| thatcat wrote:
| I think cheating is a response to a sort of exhaustion
| with a gamified system... Like when you get tired of
| going through the grind on Gran Turismo and you enter a
| cheat code so you can get the R8 without doing the 24
| hour le mans.
|
| When you shift to things that aren't gamified, such as
| project based education, I there is little to no
| "cheating" because cheating is an artifact of the game
| design.
| 0-_-0 wrote:
| You can't change people, but can change a system. So it
| makes sense to blame the system instead of people.
| mc32 wrote:
| Blacklists vs whitelists. Blacklists are better for
| society. I'd rather have default accept rather than
| default drop when it comes to laws.
| jhayward wrote:
| Please don't do this. Substantial comments are much
| appreciated.
| lisper wrote:
| The word you're looking for is "substantive", not
| "substantial."
|
| subtantive: important, serious, or related to real facts
|
| substantial: of ample or considerable amount, quantity, size
|
| IMHO, it is substantive to point out that a study produced an
| obvious result that everyone already knew to be true.
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| I'd say the comment runs afoul of the " _Please don 't post
| shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work._"
| guideline.
| lisper wrote:
| Fair enough. So here's a less shallow dismissal:
|
| This study seems to me to produce an obvious result that
| no reasonable person would doubt even in the absence of
| data, and is therefore a complete waste of time and
| resources. Am I missing something?
| mcguire wrote:
| One could, of course, provide you with a stack of obvious
| ideas that no reasonable person would doubt in the
| absence of data...that are nonetheless wrong.
| lisper wrote:
| I doubt that very much. Can you give me a few examples? I
| can't imagine what such examples would even look like
| because in the absence of data I don't see how you could
| establish that they are false.
| jhayward wrote:
| Don't put your words in my mouth, please.
|
| I said substantial. As in "weighty, solid, meaningful".
| [deleted]
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| Some cultures have a much higher tolerance for cheating than
| others. The consequences do kind of worry me, because that sort
| of environment propagates. Now you've got people dying because
| you cheated to get emissions certification, or safety regs are
| flaunted, and whistleblowing has very real consequences so this
| sort of thing goes completely unreported for years.
| quacked wrote:
| https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2014/04/the_maintenance_of_c...
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