Decision fatigue and ego depletion can negatively impact rational decision-making. IT systems like neural networks, expert systems, and fuzzy logic have the potential to help address issues like irrational behavior, deception, and dishonesty by emulating human learning, analyzing complex situations, and detecting lies. While technology offers opportunities, small acts of cheating that many people engage in can still significantly damage society. Maintaining willpower requires strategies like minimizing decisions, taking breaks, and using rewards to resist temptations.

1. PREDICTABLE IRRATIONALITY IN
THE DIGITAL AGE
Presented By
Vitalis I Nujimem

2. 1
Heidegger once said, "Technology is human activity instrumental to achieving human
purposes because technology is poiesis, that is, a making, or bringing forth, or drawing out of
something that was not present before into 'presencing' itself." Social psychologists believe that
constant decision-making makes us irrational because people are overwhelmed with too many
choices, which reduces their willpower. Additionally, cognitive scientists have discovered that
the use of system dynamics, intelligent tutoring system, expert system, heuristics, fuzzy logic,
neural networks, and knowledge-based system could help increase people's ability to act with
reason or make rational decisions. While these IT systems might not be perfect in humans,
scientists believe they enhance our ability to query the systems, see logical ways of delving into
problems, analyze nebulous situations, and learn patterns that are complex.
Although there are so many reasons why decision fatigue is pervasive, the one I found
most important is that of its power to stiffen our ability to act with reason or make rational
decisions. It is also important in today's society due to the unique roles it plays in our lives as
well as the lives of others surrounding us. Decision fatigue is also pervasive in the sense that as
humans, we are flooded with billions of pieces of information, which often require our ability to
reason and make decisive decisions. However, on the one hand, as biological beings, decision
fatigue is very hard to ignore due to the role it plays in our activities and deliberations with
others. For example, decision fatigue tells us why some individuals find it difficult to resist
offers, eat junk foods, and finally, why they often get angry with their colleagues, families, and
friends. It also tells us why storeowners place fatty foods close to the register, why people eat
during their grocery shopping, and finally, why some people walk into supermarket with the
intension to buy something, yet exit empty-handed.

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In spite of their roles in our lives, decision fatigue and ego depletion look like general
terms, but researchers and social psychologists did warn that both terms play numerous roles in
our daily decision-making. According to one author, ego depletion and decision fatigue
deteriorate our willpower and self-control, which leads us to impulse decision making. In short,
allowing us to make a shortcut decision that hurts the lives of others. In an article "Do You Suffer
from Decision Fatigue", Tierney mentioned that an impulse decision could occur due to complex
decision making throughout the day. In that particular article, Tierney also described how a
depleted parole judge, who put prisoners on parole, takes the easy way and the prisoners keep
doing time in jail. Tierney suggest that ego depletion and decision fatigue could lead decision
makers to a state of decision paralysis (Ultimate Energy Saver). That is, a state in which decision
makers will not make any decisions because their ability to decide between choices becomes
uncertain as the need for too much decision-making absorbs mental energy.
In one experiment done by Roy F. Baumeister and his colleagues, they observe that the
most common ego-depleting desires were the urges to eat and sleep, follow by the urge for
leisure. For instance, taking a break from work in order to do puzzle, play game, watch
television, or even use the Web. In addition, another ego-depleting desire in the phone or
"Preprogrammed BlackBerrys Experiment" is sexual urge; plus, the urges for other kinds of
interactions such as checking Facebook. In an article "Do You Suffer from Decision Fatigue",
Tierney wrote, "The result according to the study suggests that people spend between three and
four hours a day resisting desire." Tierney also said that, people tend to use different strategies to
ward off temptations, and the most prominent is to look for a distraction or to undertake a new
activity. Moreover, other research suggests that cutting down the number of decisions a person
has to make throughout the day might strengthen his or her willpower to ward of temptation.

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Researchers also suggest that the reward system of the brain also helped in suppressing
naughtiness to ward off temptation. That is, gifts, sugar water, an interesting task, enough sleep,
break time at work, and finally, not making decisions on empty stomach.
According to psychologists, after people achieve power they become impulsive, reckless,
and rude. They see themselves as power, authority, command, and control - all in the name of
"Money". What psychologists have discovered is that, money gives power; power makes people
less sympathetic to one another. This I attribute to as being cruel, hubris, foolish, hypocrites,
didactic, ignorant, and heartless. When people accumulate too much power, they tend to
development a certain kind of ego, feeling, and status quo - "The Myopia of Power". For
instance, they would say that road sign is not for me to follow. The instruction is not for me to
obey. Even that signup sheet is not for me either; they are for you, you, and you. Power makes
people so important, unique, and special to themselves that they tend to refute all social norms
and moral code. As a study suggest, when two groups were told to draw the letter E on their
foreheads, the high power participants draw the letter E backwards, claiming that they are in
charge. For them, they draw the letter E backwards because they do not care about the viewpoint
of others. We are in charge. We do as we see fit and we do not care what you think. For me,
power destroys our human emotions and vanish it into the wilderness.
Applied to the context of society, we propose that one major way the environment exerts
control over our behavior is its influence. From a psychologist perspective, whether one decide
to be honest or dishonest in his or her dealings, can be view internally or externally. However,
psychologists have observed, that as part of socialization people internalize the norms and values
of their society, which service as internal benchmark against which a person compares his or her
behavior (Mazar, Amir, and Ariely). Today, our society has implement different forms of

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controlling dishonesty both in larger and small-scale transactions. We have codes of ethics, we
have small courts, and we have police stations. However, the introduction of money as a medium
of exchange plays a huge role in controlling dishonesty. Ariely said, what we technically
observed in our studies is that, when money was use as a means of payment cheating did not
increase, but when tokens was offer cheating increased not just by a little bit. Introducing tokens
as the medium of immediate exchange further increased the magnitude of dishonesty.
In the article, "Why We Lie" by Dan Ariely, Ariely explicitly mentioned that the behavior
of almost everyone is driven by two opposing motivations. The first motivation, according to
Ariely is that, "We want to benefit from cheating and get as much money and glory as possible.
The second, he wrote, "We want to view ourselves as honest, honorable people." For me, I
totally agree with Ariely point of view and notion on these claims since I myself had come
across such kind of irrationality. Take, for instance, an anecdote from my own personal
experience. During the 1993 period in Nigeria, the two-decade president known as Sani Abacha
secured the presidency sit through electoral cheating. After his inauguration into office, he began
stealing the nation's wealth, cooking the books, and sending money overseas. Nonetheless, when
he addressed the nation, for one reason or the other, he wanted the people of Nigeria to believe
he was the most honest and honorable president that had ever served the country.
Despite the fact that irrational behaviors are seen as threat to society, as showcased by the
former president, Ariely believed that the kind of cheating that is most corrosive to society are
mostly small-scale mass cheating. In Ariely's "Matrix Task Experiment", which he and some of
his colleagues used in many of their studies, Ariely discovered that the students in the "Shredder
Condition" outstood those in the "Control Condition." Now this raises a question. Why is it that
the students in the shredder condition did far better on the matrix task than the students in the

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control condition? Ariely did have an answer to this question. In the study, as he observed, when
students were offered the chance to cheat just a little bit, cheating skyrocketed and flew over the
ceiling. For Ariely, this kind of cheating is very dangerous. Ariely said, "Fortunately, we did not
encounter many of these people, and because they seemed to be the exception and not the rule,
we lost a few hundred dollars to these big cheaters. At the same time, we had thousands and
thousands of participants who cheated by "just" a few matrices, but because there were so many
of them, we lost thousands of dollars to them." As a final point, small-scale cheaters need careful
attention as they cause greater damage than that of their counterparts.
When people notice a cheater in their mist, the outcome of cheating rises because
cheating is an infectious disease said Dan Ariely. In brief, that is, when one part is affected, the
remaining part will eventually contaminate its affection because it is infectious. As said earlier,
Dan Ariely and his colleagues did several of the matrix task experiments. However, to show in
one of the variations how observable cheating affects population, Ariely placed an acting student
named David in the midst of both honest and dishonest students. Just a minute after the study
commenced, David, the pretender, stood up, claiming that he had solved all the matrix problems.
The other students in the room with David were astonished. Then they began to stand up saying
that they had also finished solving the matrix problem. As Ariely said, "Watching this mini-
Madoff clearly cheat - and waltz away with a wad of cash - the remaining students claimed they
had solved double the number of matrices as the control group.” Another cheating that has a
huge effect upon a population or group is when someone thinks that their teammates would gain,
if someone or member of the group cheats.
The fallibility of our behavior as well as the counterfeiting of merchandise has alarmed
not only economists but also psychologists. According to Lee's article "The Moral Cost of

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Counterfeiting", a person's use of counterfeit may result to loss of revenue, lost of government
tax, lost of jobs, and even influence their behavior. A study done by a Duke professor revealed
that 60% of the students who were putting on fake sunglasses cheated on a math test. However,
the other group of students who were putting on real sunglasses only cheated 20%. For Ariely,
he believes that counterfeit merchandise moves people to cheat all the time. In another one of his
studies, Ariely notice that people are more likely to purchase counterfeit goods if their peers are
buying counterfeits. Subsequently, he concluded that having counterfeit merchandise as a
behavioral influencer has to do mostly with "Internal Feeling" and not "External Projection." He
wrote, "Because if one does not know he or she is wearing fake merchandise, it should not affect
them. If you think it is real, from the psychology perspective, it's real."
After performing a tremendous amount of research, I notice that IT offers more than just
a contextualized solution to our irrational behaviors. In Dumas's book, "Diving into the Bitstream
- Information technology meets society in a digital world", he wrote that fuzzy logic comprises
procedures for computer analysis of nebulous situations. He also mentioned that, neural networks
imitate the biological circuitry and logic of the brain to capture the essence of the way humans'
process information for understanding, reasoning, and learning (Dumas 189). Although,
Professor Duma did not describe these systems explicitly as a lie detector, my rigorous search
shows that fuzzy logic and neural networks can form a hybrid called a Neuro-Fuzzy system. This
combined system can be use as a lie detector to spot deceptions. Thus, in "How to Sport a Liar",
Pamela Meyer said that specialized eye trackers, infrared brain scans, and MRI's that can decode
bodily signals can also detect deceptions.
To conclude, decision fatigue can cloud our judgment leading us to make either a poor
choice or a bad decision. Nevertheless, since we face such kinds of temptations, the use of

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technology can be instrumental in helping us become better decision makers. These IT-based
solutions can help those undesirable behaviors like losing focus on dealers, getting angry with
colleagues, being impulsive or making irrational decisions. For example, system dynamics and
knowledge-based system can help us understand and solve complex problems. Intelligent
tutoring system and heuristics can help simulate and emulate learning to exceed expectation.
Expert systems can make decisions in well-formulated situations. Neural networks, on the one
hand, can help capture the essence of the way we process information for understanding,
reasoning, and learning (Dumas 189). On the one hand, technology such as MRI's, eye trackers,
infrared brain scan, and neuro-fuzzy system are the modern resolution for cheating, lying, and
deception. Thus, if there is a take-away from the assigned paper, I now know that decision
fatigue plays an important role in our lives and the lives of those we interact and deal with in the
environment. I also learned how to replenish willpower and most importantly how to conserve it
for crucial moments.

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Annotated Bibliography
Ariely, Dan. "Why We Lie." Www.WSJ.com. The Wall Street Journal, 26 May 2012. Web. 24
Feb. 2015.
In the article, author Dan Ariely talked about the two opposing motivations that repelled
almost every behavior. He also emphasized the kind of cheating that is most corrosive to
society, which he attributes as small-scale mass cheating. The performed experiment used
as stated by the author is the "Matrix Task Experiment."
Iyare, Otasowie. "A Neuro-Fuzzy System for Deception Detection during Interrogation in Law
Enforcement Agency." Annals. Computer Science Series 1st ser. XI.2013 (n.d.): n. pag.
2013. Web. 25 Feb. 2015.
This article details the combination of both "Neural Network" and "Fuzzy Logic". The
author talked about deceptions, fabrications, and omissions; and how a Neuro-Fuzzy
system can help spot a suspect during interrogation.
Lee, Jennifer. "The Moral Costs of Counterfeiting." City Room The Moral Costs of
Counterfeiting Comments. N.p., 16 Mar. 2009. Web. 25 Feb. 2015.
The author believes that counterfeiting is not only bad for our financial system; it is also
bad for our behavior. In the article, many of the cited experiments show how counterfeit
goods affect behavior.

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Lehrer, Jonah. "How Power Corrupts | WIRED." Wired.com. Conde Nast Digital, 5 May 2011.
Web. 25 Feb. 2015.
This is a straightforward, easy, and clear article. The main thesis is that when people
accumulate power they act reckless and impulsive. With the different varieties of studies
conducted, the author was able to show that power corrupts completely
McRaney, David. "Ego Depletion." You Are Not So Smart. N.p., 17 Apr. 2012. Web. 25 Feb.
2015.
This is a very interesting article on the subject of ego depletion. In the beginning, the
author describes how ego depletion deteriorates our willpower. He also uses research
done by Roy F. Baumeister to convey his point and idea. In the conclusion, he offers
strategies to help conserve willpower in the future.
Tierney, John. "Do You Suffer From Decision Fatigue?" The New York Times. The New York
Times, 20 Aug. 2011. Web. 21 Feb. 2015.
The above article presents a complete analytical view of ego depletion and decision
fatigue. It uses real-world examples, experiments, and findings to show how ego
depletion and decision fatigue affects us negatively. At the end, the author gave critical
solutions to help reduce both ego depletion and decision fatigue that deteriorate the
ability of our willpower to make quality decisions.