Honesty is Getting Harder
In this Issue:
- Research by Dr. Christian Miller on why honesty is getting harder
- How to build career insurance
Today’s Daily Deac is all about good work being done by Wake faculty and staff on matters of ethics and professional development, which can directly benefit our students. Read on!
Research by Dr. Christian Miller on why honesty is getting harder
There is a terrific new Q&A with Christian Miller of the philosophy department about why honesty is losing ground and why it matters. I certainly commend the full story to you; here is a snippet:
“Your new book is titled ‘The Honesty Crisis.’ What makes our current moment in time an actual ‘crisis’ that is distinguished from the struggles people may have always had with being truthful?
Although it’s been true for thousands of years that people have lied, cheated, stolen and the rest of it, what I’m seeing now is an acceleration of that kind of behavior, what I call an honesty crisis or really multiple honesty crises.
These honesty crises take a specific form. There are situations where we’re both tempted to be more dishonest than we have been in the past—it’s incentivized and more appealing than it was before—and at the same time, we’re also able to get away with the dishonesty easier than we could have in the past. It is simply harder to catch people being dishonest today. When you put those two things together, you’ve got a bad combination: greater temptation to be dishonest and easier means of being dishonest.
Why does it matter if we are honest or not?
The case for honesty is very compelling. Research has found that honesty is the single most important characteristic a person can possess when it comes to liking them, respecting them and understanding them.
At the societal level, I think we can all agree that living in a dishonest society is not something we want to be part of. If you live in a dishonest society, you are probably not going to be able to trust other people, and it’s really hard to live your life without trust. Furthermore, we can’t have deep and valuable relationships anymore. How could I have a deep and authentic, caring, loving relationship with other people if I know that everyone is dishonest?”
And if you are more of a video type than a read-the-story type, here is a brief video where Dr. Miller explains the crisis of honesty – and shares some promising thoughts too. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
How to build career insurance
One of my colleagues from the School of Business, Sally Perez-Ramos, is quoted in a Yahoo! Life article about how to create solid habits to protect your career:
“Araceli (Sally) Perez-Ramos, associate director, market readiness & employment for the School of Business at Wake Forest University, said, ‘One habit that helps professionals with future job changes is practicing adaptability, which services as a gear for surviving any pivot. Ways that professionals can strengthen their ability to adapt to new situations include paying attention to a colleague’s voice to sense burnout, managing when ‘the vibes in a Zoom room turn sour,’ and brainstorming to find ways out of a crisis.’
Perez-Ramos continued, ‘As your career coach [to Wake Forest students and alumni], I can’t teach you to be a nice person or a team player. You can learn a new software in a weekend, but the ability to build trust and navigate human conflict makes you indispensable.'”
I am very grateful that we have faculty and staff like Christian and Sally who are keyed into topics like honesty, ethics, leadership, and trust. Having that focus both in class and in extracurricular settings gives our students the chance to reflect on the importance of skills that will advantage them in their personal and professional lives.