AC

Be honest. Would you cheat if you were certain you'd get away with it? Best-selling author Dan Ariely says most people cheat — but just a tad. He calls it the fudge factor. We cheat up to the level that allows us to retain our self images as reasonably honest individuals, says Ariely, who teaches behavioral economics at Duke. We want to see ourselves as honorable, he says, but we also want to benefit from cheating. That's especially true when we observe others around us cheating — fudging their taxes, boosting pens from the office supply cabinet, underreporting the number of miles they drive each year for insurance purposes. Dishonest people don't always stand out like the crew at Enron. Nice people fib — and not just about golf, fishing and billable hours. Take, for example, the case of the purloined profits at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The center's gift shop, run by about 300 theater-loving volunteers, was leaking about $150,000 worth of cash and...