Lying commies

[Larry1]

From time to time we read here about some FSUW who exhibit a rather casual attitude toward the truth. A team of researchers, including Dan Ariely, performed a study that suggests that the Soviet system inspired lying and cheating. The study is described in this article from the venerable British magazine "The Economist". Almost all of you know this but for clarity to those readers who do not, the word die referred to in the article is the singular form of the word dice.

Lying commies

The more people are exposed to socialism, the worse they behave

“UNDER capitalism”, ran the old Soviet-era joke, “man exploits man. Under communism it is just the opposite.” In fact new research suggests that the Soviet system inspired not just sarcasm but cheating too: in East Germany, at least, communism appears to have inculcated moral laxity.

Lars Hornuf of the University of Munich and Dan Ariely, Ximena García-Rada and Heather Mann of Duke University ran an experiment last year to test Germans’ willingness to lie for personal gain. Some 250 Berliners were randomly selected to take part in a game where they could win up to €6 ($8).

The game was simple enough. Each participant was asked to throw a die 40 times and record each roll on a piece of paper. A higher overall tally earned a bigger payoff. Before each roll, players had to commit themselves to write down the number that was on either the top or the bottom side of the die. However, they did not have to tell anyone which side they had chosen, which made it easy to cheat by rolling the die first and then pretending that they had selected the side with the highest number. If they picked the top and then rolled a two, for example, they would have an incentive to claim—falsely—that they had chosen the bottom, which would be a five.

Honest participants would be expected to roll ones, twos and threes as often as fours, fives and sixes. But that did not happen: the sheets handed in had a suspiciously large share of high numbers, suggesting many players had cheated.

After finishing the game, the players had to fill in a form that asked their age and the part of Germany where they had lived in different decades. The authors found that, on average, those who had East German roots cheated twice as much as those who had grown up in West Germany under capitalism. They also looked at how much time people had spent in East Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall. The longer the participants had been exposed to socialism, the greater the likelihood that they would claim improbable numbers of high rolls.

The study reveals nothing about the nature of the link between socialism and dishonesty. It might be a function of the relative poverty of East Germans, for example. All the same, when it comes to ethics, a capitalist upbringing appears to trump a socialist one.

http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21607830-more-people-are-exposed-socialism-worse-they-behave-lying-commies

What do you think, interesting research or Western calumny on the glorious and mighty Soviet Union?

[ML]

Not too surprising given my experience in dealing with folks in FSU in business settings, etc.

There were several 'behaviors' that developed, probably due to the authoritarian communist system.

One thing I noticed a lot was their unwillingness to apologize or even admit to an error.

I was told by a few older FSU folks that this probably developed from the possible severe punishment (including being sent to the gulags and even death) that followed from making mistakes in the workplace, etc.

So all of you who have been about FSU folks much have probably noticed the common refrain . . . it's not my fault or I didn't do anything wrong . . . more frequently than in the west.

[Larry1]

One thing I noticed a lot was their unwillingness to apologize or even admit to an error.

A FSUW did this with me in May of 2010. Because it was near the beginning of my FSUW search I didn't realize how rare it was.

Another member's wife also did so a few years ago. I heard it on his voice mail, which he saved because of its rarity.

[jone]

Larry,

I have never been able to read FSU type statistics without thinking that they were skewed. 

[HoundDaddyLee]

I have only been apologized to once. I was very surprised because the first FSUW I met wouldn't apologize if she was caught on video doing something wrong. Absolutely bull headed about never owning a mistake.


HDL

[southernX]

I have only been apologized to once. I was very surprised because the first FSUW I met wouldn't apologize if she was caught on video doing something wrong. Absolutely bull headed about never owning a mistake.


HDL

early on this was my experience ,
once relocated to another country and time spent immmersed in another culture/family  iv noticed it has significantly changed to often getting a sorry or verbal my mistake

it helps a lot  ime if you dont criticise them & you  are also willing to accept and own your own screw ups 
SX