The Honest Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone--Especially Ourselves

To limit self-deception, we should try to limit the fudge factor, especially ambiguity and rationalization. To remove ambiguity, we can make the rules crystal clear with a plain-language internal policy, or we can create feedback processes to frequently check whether we’ve strayed from our internal rules. To remove rationalization, we can intention

For example, people cheat more on a test when the lights are dimmed.27 They cheat less when there is a cartoonlike image of an eye nearby,28 or when the concept of God is activated in memory merely by asking people to unscramble sentences that include words related to God.

“fudge factor”: the capacity to bend the rules a bit and still see ourselves as honest people.