Word: evener
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Human beings can be a devious lot. At some point, even the most moral of us have skulked or sneaked or filched something we weren't supposed to - even if it were just a cookie from the kitchen. Of all the things that get our sneakiness juices going, there is nothing like a little darkness...
...Titanic are often thought of as sister vessels; they in fact belonged to two separate owners, but the error is understandable. Both ships were huge: the Titanic was carrying 2,207 passengers and crew on the night it went down; the Lusitania had 1,949. The mortality figures were even closer, with a 68.7% death rate aboard the Titanic and 67.3% for the Lusitania. What's more, the ships sank just three years apart - the Titanic was claimed by an iceberg on April 14, 1912, and the Lusitania by a German U-Boat...
...than those in the bright room, who averaged just 7.78. When their work was checked, it turned out that cheating was rife in the dim room, with the participants there claiming an average of 4.21 more correct answers than they actually got, compared with 0.83 for the other room. Even though none of the subjects put their name on their paper and all were thus anonymous, the darkness still seemed to confer what the researchers called a "false sense of concealment," and that in turn created an additional "licensing effect...
...agreed or disagreed on a 1-to-7 scale with statements like "I was anonymous during the study," "I was watched during the study" and "Others were paying attention to my behavior during the study." Again, the people wearing sunglasses scored significantly higher on the perception of anonymity study, even though they all rationally knew the glasses made no difference. (See the 25 crimes of the century...
Zhong and his colleagues do not recommend flooding trading floors or K Street lobbyists' offices with light in order to enforce ethical behavior - at least not yet. But they do speculate that even when we communicate via e-mail, we may be more inclined to lie or distort if the lights are low than if the room were filled with sunshine. Perhaps the next time you - or your kids - sit down at the computer to chat or text, it's best to raise the blinds and insist that the person on the other...