Golfers and businesspeople must choose for themselves what they are willing and not willing to do, since most of the time there is no one else to supervise or check their work.

“Morality, like art, means drawing a line somewhere.” The question is: where is the line?

I am not sure how you feel about “only” one added matrix—after all, it is still cheating—but given that the one difference between these two conditions was the location of the signature line, I see this outcome as a promising way to reduce dishonesty.

“We are going to take things from each other if we have a chance . . . many people need controls around them for them to do the right thing.”

this thought experiment suggests that we don’t cheat and steal as much as we would if we were perfectly rational and acted only in our own self-interest.

In a nutshell, the central thesis is that our behavior is driven by two opposing motivations. On one hand, we want to view ourselves as honest, honorable people. We want to be able to look at ourselves in the mirror and feel good about ourselves (psychologists call this ego motivation). On the other hand, we want to benefit from cheating and get as

This is where our amazing cognitive flexibility comes into play. Thanks to this human skill, as long as we cheat by only a little bit, we can benefit from cheating and still view ourselves as marvelous human beings. This balancing act is the process of rationalization, and it is the basis of what we’ll call the “fudge factor theory.”

Psychological studies show that we quickly and easily start believing whatever comes out of our own mouths, even when the original reason for expressing the opinion is no longer relevant

I think this scene—both cinematic and historic—captures the romantic ideal of golf. It’s a demonstration of man versus himself, showing both his skill and nobil- ity. Perhaps these characteristics of self-reliance, self-monitoring, and high moral standards are why golf is often used as a metaphor for business ethics (not to mention the fact that so