Cognitive Design

Yes, at least for some people in some circumstances according to an interesting new fMRI study covered in Seed Magazine as Truth or Lies:

“What they found is that honesty is an automatic process—but only for some people. Comparing scans from tests with and without the opportunity to cheat, the scientists found that for honest subjects, deciding to be honest took no extra brain activity. But for others, the dishonest group, both deciding to lie and deciding to tell the truth required extra activity in the areas of the brain associated with critical thinking and self-control.”

For cognitive designers working on ethics/moral related challenges this has some important implications.

First, develop a psychographic profile for picking out those folks in your target group that require behavior change, short of doing an fMRI study. Bombarding folks that have already learned the “moral behaviors” with irrelevant attempts to change will be disorienting and counter productive.  Second, design policies, rewards, processes and other environmental factors to make the honest choice require far less mental energy (critical reasoning and self control) than the dishonest choice.