Right off the bat, this book is different from any other I have ever read. Obviously, one of the major points of this chapter (and, it seems, the entire book) is that people respond to incentives no matter what kind of position they're in. And no one is above cheating to expand on those incentives.
The two main examples are teachers and sumo wrestlers, two professions that seem about as honorable as you can get. Apparently, this is not the case. The studies mentioned in the chapter perfectly illustrated the lengths to which some will go to get the carrot being dangled in front of them. But, once explained, both examples made perfect sense. Take the sumo wrestler example. The wrestlers with the 8-6 wrestler literally had nothing to lose by throwing their match. On the other hand, the 7-7 wrestler had everything on the line. It's actually somewhat understandable that the matches were thrown the majority of the time given the circumstances.
The most disconcerting thing to me about these kinds of situations though is the fact that you hardly ever see anyone face the allegations straight up and acknowledge what they did. I'm not sure if any of you have heard this, but lately there have been a lot of allegations of match fixing going on in professional tennis. Dozens of tennis pros have been coming forward saying, "Oh yeah, I've been offered cash to lose matches, but I turned it down," but no one, not a single player has said that they have done this on purpose. It's kind of like steroids; everyone denies and denies and denies, even after the proof is authenticated, but hardly anyone admits what they've done. Not Barry Bonds, Marion Jones, Floyd Landis, or even Mark McGuire. I guess cheating isn't cheating if you don't get caught (and maybe not even if you do).
Back to the book though, so far the tone seems to be somewhat synical but everything really makes a lot of sense. Based on how engaging this book is, I'm definitely glad I chose it.
2 comments:
Here is the think about admitting to cheating….your life is over. Period. Look at Marion Jones whose confession landed her in Prison and had her legacy stripped and expunged from the record books. For you and I, when we get fired, only the company knows, along with a few friends. When these individuals get fired, it is a world class event. They have kids who have to go to school and hear about their cheating father. It is very tough with so much money, power and prestige at stake. Many of these athletes have been treated as special since they were teenagers. Now, for them to assume an ordinary life is simply not an easy pill to swallow. I mean, how you would like to go from 2.5 Million a year to 50 thousand. So, when faced with eroding skills and loss of livelihood, they cheat. Why tell the truth when the purpose of cheating is to hold on to what you are on the brink of losing. To confess is to give in and not just lose it all still, but in shame and disgrace. So, yeah, confession is not a priority when you are already dishonest enough to cheat.
I wasn't saying "confess." I was saying admit it if you're caught. Man up, if you will. If the whole world knows it, they're just gonna call you a liar. Just go ahead and say, "Yeah, I did it. I'm not proud of it, but I did it." That's the choice they all made when they decided to cheat. It's not about them cheating, its about the fact that they deny and deny and deny when the whole world saw the evidence and knows they're lying.
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