honesty exhaustion

http://www.wired.com/business/2012/06/why-we-lie-cheat-go-to-prison-and-eat-chocolate-cake-10-questions-with-dan-ariely/

The experiments show quite clearly that as you resist more and more temptation, you’re actually more and more likely to fail. And we also find this in dishonesty. So we show that if we exhaust people mentally, we give them all kinds of complex tasks that they have to suppress their initial instincts, as they do it more and more, they also cheat to a higher degree. Because cheating is one of those things that we have this immediate reward, which is cheating, and in the long-term thought, it would be nice to be honest, and as that part is getting weaker and weaker we follow more of our impulsivity.

-Dan Ariely

And isn’t this what happens when people falsely confess to a crime?

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