Here is a test to find out if you are a game player.

1. Do you find it easier to perform anonymous actions than actions under your own authorship?
2. Do you prefer to deal with behavior you do not like with subversive tactics or direct responses?
3. Do you throw up smoke screens rather than speaking and acting directly in an uncomfortable situation?
4. Have you ever had an affair with someone even though you were in a committed relationship and did not tell your significant other?
5. Do you think it is ok to do something wrong as long as no one finds out?
6. If someone says something to you that you do not like, do you become passive and go away?
7. Do you feel uncomfortable defending your positions?
8. Do you regularly feel you are superior or more intelligent and most others are inferior and less intelligent?
9. Do you feel hypersensitive to criticism?
10. Do you hide behind some type of self-perceived morality when you feel threatened?
11. Was a parent in your life overly harsh, condemning and criticizing?
12. Do you have severe feelings of insecurity?
13. Do you harbor grudges, suspicions and negative feelings toward those that you do not like?
14. Do you find it easier to be neutral than personal?
15. Do you change the subject or fail to respond when criticized?
16. Are you afraid of feeling strong emotions?

If you answered two are more questions yes then you have a problem with honesty. The lack of honesty is a lack of personal integrity. Integrity is a necessary condition for civic society.

Integrity is a concept of consistency of actions, values, methods, measures, principles, expectations, and outcomes. In ethics, integrity is regarded as the honesty and truthfulness or accuracy of one’s actions. Integrity can be regarded as the opposite of hypocrisy, in that it regards internal consistency as a virtue, and suggests that parties holding apparently conflicting values should account for the discrepancy or alter their beliefs.

The word “integrity” stems from the Latin adjective integer (whole, complete). In this context, integrity is the inner sense of “wholeness” deriving from qualities such as honesty and consistency of character. As such, one may judge that others “have integrity” to the extent that they act according to the values, beliefs and principles they claim to hold.

A value system’s abstraction depth and range of applicable interaction may also function as significant factors in identifying integrity due to their congruence or lack of congruence with observation. A value system may evolve over time while retaining integrity if those who espouse the values account for and resolve inconsistencies.

…

The procedures known as “integrity tests” or (more confrontationally) as “honesty tests” aim to identify prospective employees who may hide perceived negative or derogatory aspects of their past, such as a criminal conviction, psychiatric treatment or drug abuse. Identifying unsuitable candidates can save the employer from problems that might otherwise arise during their term of employment. Integrity tests make certain assumptions, specifically:

• that persons who have “low integrity” report more dishonest behavior
• that persons who have “low integrity” try to find reasons in order to justify such behavior
• that persons who have “low integrity” think others more likely to commit crimes — like theft, for example. (Since people seldom sincerely declare to a prospective employers their past deviance, the “integrity” testers adopted an indirect approach: letting the work-candidates talk about what they think of the deviance of other people, considered in general, as a written answer demanded by the questions of the “integrity test”.)
• that persons who have “low integrity” exhibit impulsive behavior
• that persons who have “low integrity” tend to think that society should severely punish deviant behaviour (Specifically, “integrity tests” assume that people who have a history of deviance report within such tests that they support harsher measures applied to the deviance exhibited by other people.)

The claim of such tests to be able to detect “fake” answers plays a crucial role in detecting people who have low integrity. Naive respondents really believe this pretense and behave accordingly, reporting some of their past deviance and their thoughts about the deviance of others, fearing that if they do not answer truthfully their untrue answers will reveal their “low integrity”. These respondents believe that the more candid they are in their answers, the higher their “integrity score” will be. [Link]

It takes a certain amount of courage and self-esteem to speak and act honestly. People with low self-esteem feel threatened by confrontation. They feel anxiety and danger in exposing themselves. Honesty requires good personal boundaries and a sense of self that is not externally dependent and vulnerable to conflict. If you are dishonest you are not alone. It is estimated that 40% of people are dishonest. When dishonesty becomes chronic, a person is no longer aware of being dishonest or wrong at times. This condition keeps a person from being in their skin. A person like this is lost, lonely and unhappy in the long run. They tend to act autonomously in late stages of this condition. They leave behind a lifetime of failed relationships and really have only themselves to blame. You cannot do anything about others but you can do something about yourself. If you want a life – get a life, do the hard work of honesty!