Author: Nathan Campbell

There’s an adage amongst those who know my siblings and I, its almost axiomatic. When it comes to party games, and some board games (excluding Scrabble and Take Two which we generally take fairly seriously), we’re horrible cheaters.

I’ve never known why. I put it down to having a limited attention span and not believing most games are worth playing unless you win.

Turns out we’re just creative. So there. Stop oppressing us with your desire for boring conformity and let us think outside the box.

“The same enterprising mind that allows creative people to consider new possibilities, generate original ideas, and resolve conflicts innovatively may be what also helps them justify their own dishonest behavior, said the authors of the new study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
“Ethical dilemmas often require people to weigh two opposing forces: the desire to maximize self-interest and the desire to maintain a positive view of oneself,” wrote business professors Francesca Gino, at Harvard, and Dan Ariely, at Duke University. “Recent research has suggested that individuals tend to resolve this tension through self-serving rationalizations: They behave dishonestly enough to profit from their unethical behavior but honestly enough to maintain a positive self-concept as honest human beings.”

Turns out I’m also “ethically flexible”… who knew.