Why Do People Choose to Be Honest?

The top two reasons people choose to be honest are “Others are more likely to trust and rely upon me” and “It makes the world a better, safer place.”

In conjunction with National Honesty Day April 30 in the United States, Converus recently conducted a poll via social media and email about honesty. We asked why people felt honesty was the best policy. Over 300 responded. Participants could choose from four possible answers, or they could write their own answer in the “other” category.

At 42.5%, the number 1 reason was, “Others are more likely to trust and rely on me.” But “It makes the world a better, safer place” was a very close second at 35%. “Other” write-in answers followed at 13.4%. “To avoid feeling guilty” was 6.3%, and last was “I don’t believe honesty is the best policy” at 2.8%.

Of the 43 “Other” answers, about a fourth of those referenced God or moral reasons. Some of the other answers included:

• Lies are harder to keep track of.
• Because I do not have to worry about remembering what lies I told and worry about lying to keep up the lies I have already told. Just speaking the truth is a lot less work for me!
• It’s the right thing to do.
• It makes my life easier so I can have full confidence in the things that I do. I don’t have to keep track of lies I’ve told to whom, when, where, etc. Therefore, others trust and rely on me and in turn, I can trust and rely on others — which makes the world a better, safer place.
• Leads to greater integrity and peace of mind.
• I want to live with integrity.
• Long term it hurts the least amount of people.
• I do it out of respect for others and myself.
• You will be a better person and comfortable within yourself.
• Just good karma.

We think another very acceptable answer would be, “So that I can have the best chance of passing an EyeDetect test.”