Check out Orly Lobel on Spitzer and irrationality. Here is a taste:
My dear friend, Dan Ariely, has a book out this month, Predictably Irrational:The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions. (I am delighted to report the book hit #5 on the NYT bestselling non-fiction list this week!) In one of the chapters Ariely describes an experiment he conducted in collaboration with another behavioral economist guru, George Loewenstein. In their article, Heat of the Moment: The Effect of Sexual Arousal on Sexual Decision Making, Ariely and Loewenstein state that it is odd that little research has been conducted on the impact of sexual arousal on judgment. Through research, they find that as aroused participants’ interest in procuring sex increased, willingness to use morally questionable methods to obtain the sex increased and probability of using protection decreased. They also show that participants were unable to predict how much of an effect a state of arousal will have on their decision-making. In other words, Spitzer acted stupidly human. All of this is no justification for the Governor of NY to not take a cold shower to move away from his aroused state before calling a high-end prostitution “ring” (I like “company” better). But still, there are worse things people do in positions of power than use their private bank account to spend an evening with a girl away from home. I for one think that a powerful married political hitting on a subordinate in his office is worse than paying someone arranged by an agency. I also think that one can make the case that there are degrees of adultery and that sleeping with a call girl is not as bad as having a mistress.
