Re: Honor Systems
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Remember the beginning of Freakonomics, with the day care center? They start out by saying 'pick the kids up at X:00' and there was a certain amount of lateness from the parents. So the day care changed it to 'pick the kids up at X:00, and pay $Y for every 5 minutes you are late.' The quantity and severity of lateness went up. It was like the penalty was just a price, and the offense was still bad, but more acceptable, whereas before, lateness was tolerated but more taboo. You used to want to avoid it for social reasons, but now it was a legitimized option.
Maybe the honors system is similar. At Princeton (or wherever, this is all in my head, anyway) cheating is basically unspeakable, and is less likely to come up in the mind of a possible offender than if the price were clearer.
Sure, getting caught and punished somewhere is bad, but getting caught and punished when you are under the honors system (though much less likely) is infinitely bad (psychically, I mean.)
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There was also a cool section in that book about a bagel salesman who ran his business by the honor system. Buy a bagel and put a buck in the basket. He kept meticulous records and found that %78 (ball park figure, can't remember exactly) of people are honest. He also said that people were less honest around the holiday's, and that higher income people were less honest than lower wage earners.
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