I heard an interesting interview a few weeks ago as I was driving to work. Michael Smerconish was interviewing Celia Moore from the London Business School about research on cheating.

While it is almost universally accepted that people who lie, cheat or steal feel guilty (if they are not sociopaths) unexpectedly her team discovered a positive “hit” from cheating and getting away with it. They call it “The Cheater’s High”.

The most positive emotions after cheating occurred when a person was able to “pull a fast one” and cheat in an area where they believed no one would get hurt.

Some of the most common examples were faking the need for a therapy dog, sneaking into a handicapped parking spot, or cheating on a test. A behavior that seemed especially likely to create a “cheater’s high” was getting a prime parking spot at a large sporting arena like the Hollywood Bowl, where there are a large number of handicapped parking spots.

The researchers also discovered that not only do cheaters feel good about getting away with something, but they will cheat more frequently when they know many others are cheating in the same way.

Listening to Celia Moore’s discussion reminded me of some of the interviews we did with partners when writing Tell Me No Lies: How to Face the Truth and Build a Loving Marriage.

In our interviews, 40% of husbands and 30% of wives acknowledged lying to their partners in the past year. Some of the most common lies were how much something cost (especially clothes for women and hobby equipment for men) and where they were going after work or out to lunch.

We framed this kind of misinformation as conflict avoidance in the book. We believed that the deception enabled partners to avoid conflict, often conflict that seemed unnecessary or conflict that they feared. Therefore, we imagined the lies to be self -protective. We didn’t think about the possible release of hormones in the pleasure centers of the brain.

What an extra layer of reinforcement if partners were also experiencing some aspects of a dopamine high when they cheated or deceived their partners in small ways!

The clinical implications of this research are fascinating.

Please share your thoughts.

Have you ever heard a client describe cheating this way?

Have you ever experienced “a high” from deceiving or pulling a fast one on a loved one?

Did you ever consider how dopamine release might increase the likelihood of deception?

If you’d like to read the whole article, read The Cheater’s High: The Unexpected Affective Benefits of Unethical Behavior, by Nicole E. Ruedy, University of Washington, Celia Moore, London Business School, Francesca Gino, Harvard University, Maurice E. Schweitzer, University of Pennsylvania.

For more information or to order our book on this subject, visit Tell Me No Lies.