From a legal perspective, dishonesty is the idea of cost-benefit analysis. When people think about being dishonest, they wonder what can be gained or what can be lost. If the cost of lying is too high, they are not going to be dishonest.

The prevalent theory of dishonesty

People often feel the need to rationalize their dishonesty. The danger is taking that first step. 
The story of Joe Papp, an Olympic cyclist falls into this category. Papp consulted his physician, who wrote Papp a prescription for erythropoietin (EPO), a cancer treatment that increases the production of red blood cells. Papp injected himself, but also imported and distributed EPO to his team and to other teams. This essentially made him a drug dealer.

The slippery slope

People that are required to put their signature at the top of a document instead of the bottom are more likely to provide truthful information. 
They are confirming that the information they’re about to provide is true before they have a chance to falsify it.

Morals or ethics tilt behaviors

Before Dan Ariely launches into explaining the science behind dishonesty, he tells an amusing story: God goes to Sarah and says, "You're going to have a child." Sarah laughs and responds, "How can I have a child when my husband is so old?" God then goes to Abraham and tells him, "You're going to have a child."

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Personal Development

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Money & Investments

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Problem Solving

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Communication

The Truth About Lying

Black Friday is the conventional starting day for the holiday shopping season.
Historically, it’s also been the best day to find great deals on the year’s hottest toys, games, and electronics.

Why Black Friday Is So Popular

<ul>
<li>In the middle of the 20th century, Thanksgiving parades drew crowds in most major cities and in some of the smaller towns too. Many were sponsored by local or national retailers. Back in the day, that meant mostly department stores.</li>
<li>By attaching their names to the most visible events on the preholiday calendar, department stores reminded their customers that they were open for business in the coming holiday shopping season.</li>
<li>Over time, Thanksgiving parades came to mark the unofficial start of that season.</li>
</ul>

The 20th Century: The Parade of Sponsors

<ul>
<li>Thanksgiving fell on the last Thursday of November since 1863 until 1939, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved Thanksgiving to the fourth Thursday of November (starting with 1941), influenced by the request of a powerful coalition of retailers.</li>
<li>When Thanksgiving fell on November 30, it left only 24 holiday shopping days and this worried retailers who reasoned that busy holiday shoppers would simply shop less in a shorter season.</li>
<li>They promoted the idea that a longer holiday shopping season would be good for the American economy.</li>
</ul>

The Modern Holiday Shopping Calendar

<ul>
<li>In 1869, two oligarchs conspired to corner the American gold market, which was at that time the basis for the U.S. dollar.</li>
<li>Their plan was so complex and the plot finally unraveled on Friday, September 24, sending U.S. financial markets into a tailspin, ruining countless investors, and tanking the broader economy.</li>
<li>That dark day came to be known as “Black Friday.”</li>
</ul>

The Term “Black Friday”

Black Friday wasn’t a great day for the police departments in mid-20th-century Philadelphia. By the 1960s, locals had taken to calling the chaotic day after Thanksgiving “Black Friday.”
In 1950s Philadelphia, Thanksgiving weekend was a mob scene. The Army and Navy college football teams celebrated their fierce rivalry each year with a neutral-ground clash in Philly on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. The day before, thousands of people from surrounding communities – as well as Army or Navy devotees from farther afield – flooded the city in anticipation of the big game. They took the opportunity to stock up on clothes, home goods, and other giftable items at central Philly’s many retail shops and department stores.

Why Black Friday Is “Black”

<ul>
<li>The day after Thanksgiving was a natural time for shoppers to head into town and hit the department store. Most families were still together from the prior day’s feast, and few middle-class folks were required to work.</li>
<li>Big-city shopping districts were anchored by department stores. Department stores sold clothing, cosmetics, jewelry, home goods, appliances, and much more.</li>
<li>With a single visit to a department store and a few side trips to specialty retailers, you could take care of your entire holiday shopping list in a single day.</li>
</ul>

The Department Store Model: Holiday Shopping in the Early to Mid-20th Century

<ul>
<li>Today’s retail environment is omnichannel. Shoppers are just as likely – if not more so – to buy stuff at home on their smartphones or laptops than drive to the nearest mall to seek the best deals in person.</li>
<li>The decline of brick-and-mortar retail is devastating the lower and middle echelons of the suburban shopping center market and threatens to deal a last dealt a death blow to the downtown department store model.</li>
<li>Black Friday now happens when, where, and how consumers choose. It’s also happening earlier than ever, with “Black Friday” deals appearing as early as Halloween.</li>
</ul>

Black Friday Today

Black Friday is the biggest shopping day of the year. Learn more about how the retail holiday originated and evolved into what it is today.

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Marketing & Sales

What Is Black Friday - History of the Holiday Shopping Phenomenon

<ul>
<li>In history, Black Friday was a stock market disaster that happened on September 24, 1869, when, after a period of uncontrolled speculation, the price of gold crashed, and the markets crashed.</li>
<li>The contemporary meaning refers to the day after the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, which has been a holiday itself for many employees. It is known as a day full of shopping deals and heavy discounts and is considered the beginning of the holiday shopping season.</li>
</ul>

Black Friday has two relevant meanings

<ul>
<li>Retailers may spend an entire year planning their Black Friday sales. They use this event as their chance to offer special prices on overstock inventory and discounts on seasonal items, such as typical holiday gifts.</li>
<li>Retailers also offer significant discounts on top-selling brands of TVs, smart devices, and other electronics, tempting customers in the hope that, once inside, they will purchase higher-margin goods.</li>
<li>Consumers often shop on Black Friday for the hottest trending items, which can lead to stampedes and violence in the absence of adequate security.</li>
</ul>

Black Friday and retail spending

There is a theory stating that, when it comes to "Black Friday", the term "black" refers to being profitable, which comes from the old bookkeeping practice of recording profits in black ink and losses in red ink.
Retail businesses should be able to sell enough on this Friday (and the ensuing weekend) to put themselves "in the black” for the rest of the year.

"In the Black"

The term was made-up by the overworked Philadelphia police officers.
<ul>
<li>In the 1950s, crowds of shoppers and travelers flooded Philadelphia the day after Thanksgiving.</li>
<li>Philadelphia stores hosted major sales that day, but the city also hosted the Army-Navy football game on Saturday of the same weekend.</li>
<li>Because of the crowds, traffic cops were required to work 12-hour shifts, and they were not allowed to take the day off.</li>
<li>Over time, the annoyed and fatigued officers started to refer to this dreaded workday as "Black Friday."</li>
<li>The term became popular and spread to store salespeople who used "Black Friday” to describe the long lines and general chaos they had to deal with on that day.</li>
</ul>

The origins of Black Friday

<ul>
<li>Black Friday become the shopping phenomenon event it is today in the 2000s when Black Friday was officially designated the biggest shopping day of the year.</li>
<li>Until then, that title had gone to the Saturday before Christmas.</li>
<li>Today, Black Friday is becoming an increasingly lengthy event: a Black Weekend</li>
</ul>

How Black Friday evolved

<ul>
<li>For online stores, a similar tradition to Black Friday has arisen on the Monday following Thanksgiving. Cyber Monday is seen as the unofficial start of the online holiday shopping season.</li>
<li>The idea is that consumers return to work after the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, ready to start shopping.</li>
<li>Online shops often promote their sales prior to the actual day in order to compete against the Black Friday offerings at brick-and-mortar stores. </li>
<li>In terms of sales, Cyber Monday has proven to be a success among shoppers.</li>
</ul>

Cyber Monday competition

<ul>
<li>The sales registered on Black Friday are frequently seen as a litmus test for the overall economic situation of the country and a way for economists to assess the confidence of the average American.</li>
<li>Those who follow the Keynesian hypothesis​ that spending drives economic activity view lower Black Friday sales figures as a harbinger of slower growth.</li>
<li>Some investors and analysts look at Black Friday numbers as a way to gaugemeasure the overall health of the entire retail industry.</li>
<li>Others suggest that it only causes very short-term gains or losses.</li>
</ul>

The economic significance of Black Friday

All about how Black Friday came to be and its impact on our shopping.

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Health

Understand yourself and those around you.

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Psychology

Black Friday Bonanza

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Society, Arts & Culture

Black Friday Definition

Shopping can be a bonding activity between friends and family members. But making positive connections with people you don&#39;t know (offering a cashier a warm thanks for example) has a remarkably powerful impact on well-being and even physical health.
These short moments of connection expand your awareness in ways that accrue to create lasting and beneficial changes in your life.

Shopping as a bonding activity

Black Friday can involved a lot of unexpected and unwanted pauses, whether in traffic or in line. Use the pauses to practice being in the moment.
Check out the setting around you. How do the people look? Even notice the products displayed in the stored. Really take it all in. Then notice your breath, how you feel. If you’re shopping at home, pause while the images load to gaze out a window, take three deep breaths, and notice the world outside the screen.

Black Friday: Using the forced pauses to your benefit

Our brains are wired for pleasure, and we can find it in many different pursuits and at many different levels.
Shopping offers plenty of opportunities for savoring: from your mochaccino pit stop to the sense of satisfaction you feel when you’ve crossed something off your gift list.

Savor pleasure wherever it arises

Gift-giving inspires us to think about others and what they would really like to receive. Take a moment before you pay to consider your partner’s/friend&#39;s or family member&#39;s preferred method of receiving, and how that would best translate into a material object or an experience.
Even couples who have been together forever get gifts wrong all the time; we tend to choose presents for others that we’d want to receive ourselves.

Gift selection: a way to focus on your relationships

Getting great deals is fun, but it turns out that giving to charity feels even better.
If you get the opportunity to give a little extra for a good cause, go ahead and do it.

Hardwired for generosity

Before you hit the mall or open your laptop, consider these five ideas for transforming shopping into an opportunity to practice mindfulness and bring more positive emotions into your life.

Five Ways to Make Your Black Friday More Mindful

<ul>
<li>Holidays are filled with family get-togethers, rituals and many things that make us smile.</li>
<li>This period is bursting with sensory treats: great food, beautiful colors and lights, sounds of bells, crackers, or whistles, and the warmth of loved ones.</li>
<li>Family rituals are valuable, offering a large number of psychological benefits, like reconnecting with our loved ones, and a break from routine.</li>
<li>We let go of our anxiety and uncertainty and recite blessings, raise a glass of toast and perform increasingly meaningful rituals.</li>
</ul>

Why Holidays Feel Special

Prayers, toasts, recitals, or singing Christmas carols are basically structured, and repetitive actions that lower anxiety and make the world a bit simpler.
Festive meals are always the main attraction, with special attention to home-cooked treats. Many cultures have elaborate rituals related to how food is cooked, served or eaten. From cooking seven different kinds of curry to spit-roasting a lamb on Easter, many cooking rituals are time-honoured and make the festival special.

Family Traditions

The gift-giving ritual is not to be taken lightly and is extremely crucial to maintain social ties and create reciprocal actions filled with love and respect.
Even if the gift choices are pre-planned, the ritual of exchanging gifts has tremendous value and significance.

The Art Of Giving

Holiday rituals are a significant bonding process for the entire family, especially young children. The joyous or silly rituals, great food, gifts and reconnection become the real reason for being alive.
Group identity and belongingness play a huge factor in all the members of the family, including the in-laws. The festive rituals are perfect for family harmony and often have ‘peak’ moments that are unforgettable.

Rituals: The Family Glue

Holiday traditions – whether culinary, religious, decorative or musical – help families bond and individuals feel stable and content.

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Love & Relationships

An anthropologist explains why we love holiday rituals and traditions

According to French anthropologist Marcel Mauss, gift-giving carries many legal, moral, economical and spiritual aspects, and is significant for the whole social fabric. Many ancient cultures follow the intricate rules of gift exchange, which is not a voluntary act, but rather a comprehensive set of rules based on obligation and formality.
If a person does not take part in this obligatory ritual, he or she risks losing respect, moral authority and even wealth.

The Psychology Of Exchanging Gifts

The Gift protocol is a non-voluntary strategy to affirm and strengthen the moral bonds of society.
It is a competitive, formal game that diminishes the pure value of gifts and makes it into a set of rules.

Social Behaviour: The Gifting Protocol

<ol>
<li>Gift-giving is a moral act, with social consequences if done incorrectly. If one signals that he or she is not doing the ‘presents’ thing, the person is then banished from this formality.</li>
<li>Receiving shoddy gifts with a warm 'thank you' is a part of the ritual based on pretentiousness and social deception.</li>
<li>Wrapping and personalization of gifts matter, that is why cheques or vouchers feel cold.</li>
</ol>

The Rules Of Social Gift Exchange

The Gift, written by Marcel Mauss in 1925, explores why we exchange things and the social rules we follow – and helps explain why gift-giving can be so fraught with worry

Gifts are a traditional part of Christmas – but why do we give presents at all?

Observing the psychological aspects of kindness, witnessing a kind act makes one feel a ‘warm glow’ in our hearts, something which researchers call moral elevation.
When people watch other people being generous and kind, it inspires and motivates them to want to do good.

Kindness Is Contagious

When people observe kindness or generosity, they may be subtly pressured to look good and be more giving themselves. But this is just one of the minor reasons, as many act in an anonymous manner.
Seeing the other person being kind, people get to unconsciously copy their behaviour as the prosocial desire for goodness is rekindled.

Reasons For Kindness Attracting

<ul>
<li>Women seem to be affected (or motivated) more than men by the kind behaviour of other people.</li>
<li>A kind act on the street, or on TV had the same effect on people.</li>
<li>The kind of kindness witness related to the response of the witness. If the act was praising, for instance, the response would be similar.</li>
<li>If a lot of time passed between witnessing the act and trying to act in a similar manner, the giving impetus diminished.</li>
</ul>

Research On Kindness: The Findings

A new study finds that when we witness kindness, we're inspired to be kind ourselves.

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Teamwork

How Kindness Spreads in a Community

<ul>
<li>Due to the pandemic, millions have had to say goodbye to their existing jobs, as companies and stores make positions redundant or go bankrupt themselves.</li>
<li>Training oneself or upgrading to newer, better skills seems like a good idea to hedge oneself against the indirect consequences of the virus unleashed on the world this year. </li>
<li>Many companies and governments have given signals that new skills are key to steady employment.</li>
</ul>

Reskilling And Refitting

<ul>
<li>Globalisation and technological progress have impacted the well-paid ‘blue-collar’ jobs negatively, apart from disrupting routine office work. Addressing a skills gap by training workers sounds great in theory, but various studies point out to a different reality: skilled workers are already in oversupply.</li>
<li>The problem arises from the retraining occupations that workers are doing, which may not be what the industry requires, but just a small fraction of the total vacancies. Add to this the fact that technology itself is automating tasks at a brisk pace, eliminating thousands of jobs altogether.</li>
</ul>

The Problem With Reskilling

The push towards reskilling is not a scam, but merely a misalignment of incentives and a myopic focus on ‘skilling’, which does not shine a light on the numerous other factors that prevent people from getting new jobs, or keep them stuck in dead-end jobs:
<ol>
<li>Lack of interoperability between organisations for employer health or retirement plans.</li>
<li>Lack of decent-paying entry-level jobs.</li>
<li>Logistical and commuting issues of the employee.</li>
<li>Lack of guidance and support to laid-off employees from the industry.</li>
</ol>

Realism About Reskilling

The pandemic has amplified the long-enduring narrative that reskilling is an answer to workforce woes. But is it?

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Career

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Leadership & Management

Why reskilling won’t always guarantee you a new job

One can develop healthy spending habits and avoid wasting money by using the simple 30-day rule: Whenever there is an urge to spend on something, just wait for 30 days.
One can buy whatever is required while making sure that the basics of personal financial management (budgeting and doing savings) are covered. The trick is to just wait for a month and then make an assessment of the planned purchase.

The 30-Day Rule

<ul>
<li>Marketers capitalize on the emotional component of any purchase while working hard towards ensuring consumers make ‘impulse’ purchases both online and offline.</li>
<li>Many people purchase due to their need for emotional fulfilment, indulging in shopping therapy and incurring credit card debt.</li>
<li>This leads to random, unused stuff lying in the house, which is not really needed.</li>
</ul>

The Emotional Component of A Purchase

Most stores use the ‘SALE’ marketing gimmick (both online and offline) so that we can splurge our money now, instead of waiting.
The system is gamed for us to spend our money wherever we go. We need to stop wondering where our money went and start telling it where to go.

When Everything Is On Sale

Waiting a month distances us from the planned purchase emotionally, filtering out any impulsive decisions.
Waiting for 30 days before making any purchase makes us use our discipline, foresight, planning and restraint, and would feel exactly like curbing our urge to eat junk food, which tastes great at that moment but is not a healthy option for your body in the long run.

Reasoning For The 30-Day Rule

<ol>
<li>Review your spending, taking an inventory of all your purchases. This provides a better understanding of where the money goes.</li>
<li>Start to look at what all spending can be curbed (it will be a lot) and one can start small, like by not buying the candy at the grocery store while waiting in line, or not ordering pizza.</li>
<li>After curbing junk food purchases, one can work towards clothes, shoes, video games, and the biggest culprit of them all: The Urge to upgrade your smartphone.</li>
<li>Write down the item you feel like buying and place it where you can reflect on the purchase, setting yourself a goal of waiting 30 days.</li>
<li>Stay committed and challenge yourself to buy debt-free whenever you can, after you wait 30 days.</li>
</ol>

Steps For Implementing The 30-Day Rule

What is the 30 Day Rule? If you waste money on imulse buys you need to read this right now. Rein in your spending and start saving today!

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Habits

What Is the 30 Day Rule (Stop Impulse Buying with This Simple Trick)?

Political science professor Elinor Ostrom showed that common-pool resources, such as water supplies or fish, can be effectively managed collectively without government or private control.
But this is only possible if those using the resource are physically close to it and have a relationship with each other. They will self-police to ensure community rules are followed.

Management of Common Pool Resources

The economic theory of expected utility maximization says that people will act out of rational self-interest. But psychologist Daniel Kahneman showed that it is incorrect.
<ul>
<li>Common cognitive biases cause people to use faulty reasoning to make irrational decisions, such as the anchoring effect, the planning fallacy, and the illusion of control.</li>
<li>People make decisions by using irrational guidelines such as perceived fairness and loss aversion, which are based on feelings, attitudes, and memories.</li>
<li>People tend to use general rules, such as representativeness, to make judgments in contradiction to the laws of probability.</li>
</ul>

Behavioural Economics

<ul>
<li>In 2001, George A. Akerlof, A. Michael Spence, and Joseph E. Stiglitz won the prize "for their analyses of markets with asymmetric information." </li>
<li>Economic models predicated on perfect information are often misguided. In reality, one party usually has superior knowledge, such as in the car market, where sellers know more than buyers about the quality of their vehicles and can lead to a market of lemons (adverse selection.)</li>
<li>Better-informed market participants can transmit information to lesser-informed participants. Job applicants can use educational attainment as a signal to prospective employers about their likely productivity; corporations can signal their profitability to investors by issuing dividends.</li>
</ul>

Asymmetric Information

<ul>
<li>In 1994 Nash, Selten and Harsanyi became Economics Nobel Laureates for their contributions to economic game theory. </li>
<li>Non-cooperative games are those where participants make non-binding agreements. They base their decisions on how they think the other participants will behave, without knowing how they really will behave.</li>
<li>The Nash Equilibrium is a method for predicting the outcome of non-cooperative games based on equilibrium. These findings have been applied to dynamic strategic interactions, and to scenarios with incomplete information to help develop the field of information economics.</li>
</ul>

Game Theory

<ul>
<li>James M. Buchanan's work within Public Choice earned him the Nobel Prize in Economic Science in 1986.</li>
<li>This theory shows that contrary to the conventional wisdom that public-sector actors act in the public's best interests, politicians and bureaucrats tend to act in self-interest, just like private-sector actors.</li>
<li>Using these insights, we can better understand the incentives that motivate political actors and better predict the results of political decision-making, then design fixed rules that will lead to better outcomes.</li>
</ul>

The Public Choice Theory

This is a key concept in modern financial theory used for valuing European options and employee stock options.
Investors can use an online options calculator to get results by adding an option's strike price, the underlying stock's price, the option's time to expiration, its volatility, and the market's risk-free interest rate. Robert Merton and Myron Scholes won the 1997 Nobel Prize in economics for the Black-Scholes theorem.

The Black-Scholes Theorem

Lessons in Decision-Making from Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman

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Books

The Art of Decision-Making

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Economics

5 Nobel Prize-Winning Economic Theories You Should Know About

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