A cheat in our midst: How people evaluate and respond to fellow group members who cheat

Having a group cheat within a group can violate group trust and reduce the benefits gained from group membership. However, group members will sometimes cheat to get an advantage over other in‐group members. In two experiments, the present research investigated how group members evaluate and respond to fellow group members who cheat, and whether group prototypicality or evaluators’ group identification moderate evaluations and behavioral recommendations toward group cheats. In Study 1 (N = 146 undergraduate students), group members evaluated group cheats more negatively than a comparable group deviant. However, highly identified group members would spare a cheat who had high group prototypicality. In Study 2 (N = 227 undergraduate students), highly identified group members rated a one‐time cheat with high prototypicality more favorably than a one‐time cheat with low prototypicality. However, prototypicality did not moderate evaluations toward a multiple time group cheat. In both studies, target evaluations were associated with changes in behavioral recommendations. Overall, results indicate a pattern similar to research on transgression or deviance credit: having group prototypicality can save a group cheat from an initial negative evaluation from highly identified group members, but prototypicality does not buffer against negative evaluations toward multiple time group cheaters.     

The heterogeneous processes of cheating: Attention evidence from two eye tracking experiments

Dishonesty erodes society. Although much is known about dishonesty, the process leading up to the decision of whether to be honest or dishonest is often assumed to be homogenous and is not well understood. In this paper, we take a more nuanced approach and explore more closely the process of deciding whether to cheat or be honest when an opportunity to cheat arises. We do this in two laboratory eye tracking experiments. In our first experiment (n = 193), we identify heterogeneity in the decision to cheat. Some decisions on whether to cheat or be honest exhibit relatively little variation and appear to be oriented towards cheating (or honesty) with apparently little consideration of the alternative, whereas other decisions seem to be characterized by a higher degree of consideration for both decision alternatives. Our second experiment (n = 299) demonstrates that a gaze dependent intervention in the choices process is able to affect the behavioral outcomes.     

A Spanish translation of Mehrabian and Russell's emotionality scales for environmental consumer psychology

The development of a translation of Mehrabian and Russell's scales for the measurement of pleasure, arousal and dominance from the original English to a Spanish version for use in Venezuela is described. The translated scales were administered to two samples of middle‐class Venezuelan consumers (n = 127,n = 127) between the ages of 20 and 50, among whom males and females were represented approximately equally. Internal reliability (measured by Cronbach's alpha) and scale validity (measured by factor analysis) indicate that the translated scales are suitable for consumer and other social psychological research in Spanish. Copyright © 2002 Henry Stewart Publications Ltd.     

Observations on the Methodology in Attitude Scales

Abstract

Male and female undergraduates (N = 130) rated themselves or an actor-confederate on factors influencing them not to cheat on a test when situational variables served to either inhibit or facilitate tendencies to cheat. Results indicated a partial reversal of the actor-observer phenomenon and some evidence that actors' attributions fit the covariance model and observers', the schematic model.     

The cheating and intention of a partner as determinants of evaluative decisions among juvenile offenders

Male juvenile offenders were asked to evaluate the work of an experimental partner (confederate) who completed a work task four times. The work partner cheated on two trials and did not cheat on two trials while working for a charity (one cheat and one noncheat trial) or for selfish gain (one cheat and one noncheat trial). It was found that subjects rated the work done on cheating trials lower than work done on noncheating trials. In addition, subjects shared less reward money on cheating trials relative to noncheating trials. However, the intentions of the confederate, defined as the reward recipient, failed to affect subjects' judgments. These results were described as supporting previous studies which have indicated that delinquents fail to take account of others' intentions when making moral judgments.     

Young children with a positive reputation to maintain are less likely to cheat

The present study examined whether having a positive reputation to maintain makes young children less likely to cheat. Cheating was assessed through a temptation resistance paradigm in which participants were instructed not to cheat in a guessing game. Across three studies (total N = 361), preschool‐aged participants were randomly assigned to either a reputation condition, in which an experimenter told them that she had learned of their positive reputation from classmates, or to a control condition in which they received no such information. By age 5, children in the reputation condition cheated less often than those in the control condition even though nobody was watching and choosing not to cheat conflicted with their personal interest. These findings are the first to show that informing children that they have a positive reputation to maintain can influence their moral behavior.     

Babyface effects: A double‐edged sword in healthcare service evaluations

We examine how a doctor's baby‐like facial appearance affects people's perceptions and judgments before and after a medical fraud occurs. A 2 (face type: babyfaced vs maturefaced) × 2 (doctor's gender: male vs female) × 2 (doctor's specialty: internal medicine vs surgery) between‐subjects experiment was conducted. The results indicate that a babyfaced doctor fares better than a maturefaced doctor in terms of patients' expectations, satisfaction and intended loyalty. However, having baby‐like facial features may work against a doctor who is involved in a medical fraud. The severity of a medical fraud is perceived to be greater when it involves either a babyfaced female doctor of internal medicine or a babyfaced male surgeon. After the medical fraud, this altered perception of the fraud's severity leads to reduced patient loyalty. Service evaluations based on the doctor‐patient relationship show that the doctor's baby face is a double‐edged sword.     

Combating Academic Fraud: Are Students Reticent about Uncovering the Covert?

This study links Cressey’s established fraud triangle theory to a recently developed academic fraud risk triangle as a platform for identifying the determinants of academic fraud risk factors. The study then evaluates the magnitude and extent to which students are willing to confront the realities of academic fraud and move towards a culture of academic integrity. Most of the studies pertaining to combating academic fraud have primarily been the opinions of the researchers, namely, the faculty. Although students may not be expected to police the fight against academic fraud, their opinions as to what would work and what would not, have not been sufficiently examined, and this study contributes to filling that void. We explore the agreement among students and groups of students concerning specific deterrent strategies. We find two types of strategies, student action and faculty/administration action. Results from 740 students surveyed found that the most widely supported strategies are stronger penalties, parental notification, an anonymous tip line, and administering a uniform policy. The least supported strategies were academic honor code, no strategy at all, requiring an ethics course, and leaving individual instructors to determine penalties. Further, full time, domestic, undergraduate, and male students favor student action strategies, which are more reactionary and less punitive.     

To trust or not to trust: How self‐construal affects consumer responses to interpersonal influence

Although people generally prefer persuasive messages that align with their self‐construal, the present research explores a seemingly paradoxical situation wherein mismatched message that does not align with people's self‐construal is positively received. Given sufficient cognitive capacity to trigger persuasion knowledge—the knowledge of persuasion tactics that are encountered in the marketplace, the use of an individually focused persuasion attempt on consumers with an interdependent self‐construal results in greater levels of trust in the sales agent. In contrast, consumers with an independent self‐construal respond similarly to different types of persuasion attempts. Persuasion knowledge is a mechanism for variations in trust. The findings replicate those of prior work, and the robustness of the effects is confirmed via small‐scale meta‐analysis.     

Psychological Teaching-Learning Contracts: Academic Integrity and Moral Psychology

The psychological teaching–learning contract model of academic integrity, presented herein, features a social contract-based mechanism for moral judgment that is hypothesized to underlie the “belief–behavior incongruity,” that is, the noted frequency with which students who believe cheating is immoral still cheat. High school students (N = 493) from 11 international schools in 9 countries participated in the study. Results suggest that students often regard the cheating they do within a given context to be justifiable, that is, not immoral, implying that such behavior is not incongruous with their moral beliefs.     

College Student Cheating: The Role of Motivation,Perceived Norms,Attitudes, and Knowledge of Institutional Policy

This study provides a comparative analysis of students' self-reported beliefs and behaviors related to six analogous pairs of conventional and digital forms of academic cheating. Results from an online survey of undergraduates at two universities (N = 1,305) suggest that students use conventional means more often than digital means to copy homework, collaborate when it is not permitted, and copy from others during an exam. However, engagement in digital plagiarism (cutting and pasting from the Internet) has surpassed conventional plagiarism. Students also reported using digital “cheat sheets” (i.e., notes stored in a digital device) to cheat on tests more often than conventional “cheat sheets.” Overall, 32% of students reported no cheating of any kind, 18.2% reported using only conventional methods, 4.2% reported using only digital methods, and 45.6% reported using both conventional and digital methods to cheat. “Digital only” cheaters were less likely than “conventional only” cheaters to report assignment cheating, but the former was more likely than the latter to report engagement in plagiarism. Students who cheated both conventionally and digitally were significantly different from the other three groups in terms of their self-reported engagement in all three types of cheating behavior. Students in this “both” group also had the lowest sense of moral responsibility to refrain from cheating and the greatest tendency to neutralize that responsibility. The scientific and educational implications of these findings are discussed in this study.     

Optimizing Honor Codes for Online Exam Administration

This study examined self-reported academic dishonesty at a midsize public university. Students (N = 492) rated the likelihood they would cheat after accepting to abide by each of eight honor code pledges before Internet-based assignments and examinations. The statements were derived from honor pledges used by different universities across the United States and varied in length, formality, and the extent to which the statements included consequences for academic dishonesty. Longer, formal honor codes with consequences were associated with a lower likelihood to cheat. Results showed a significant three-way interaction and suggest how to best design honor codes.     

Psychometric properties of the Highly Sensitive Child scale across developmental stage,gender, and country

Adolescents differ in their degree of Environmental Sensitivity, that is, the ability to perceive and process information about their environment. The present study aimed to investigate the psychometric properties of the Highly Sensitive Child scale (HSC), a self-report measure of Environmental Sensitivity, in two Belgian and UK samples with a total of 3056 adolescents. First, the factor structure, internal consistency, dimensionality, and construct validity of the HSC scale were examined. Second, measurement invariance of the HSC scale across developmental stage, gender, and country was tested. Results supported a bifactor model with a general sensitivity factor and three group factors: Ease of Excitation (EOE), Low Sensory Threshold (LST), and Aesthetic Sensitivity (AES). Cronbach’s alpha and McDonalds’s (hierarchical) omega indicated that the HSC scale is a reliable measure of Environmental Sensitivity, except for AES. Furthermore, AES was associated with different personality traits than EOE and LST. Second, the HSC scale was partially measurement invariant across developmental stage, gender, and country. The results provide important insights in the psychometrics of a first measurement of Environmental Sensitivity in early to late adolescents. Implications for further research are discussed.

     

Telling young children they have a reputation for being smart promotes cheating

The present research examined the consequences of telling young children they have a reputation for being smart. Of interest was how this would affect their willingness to resist the temptation to cheat for personal gain as assessed by a temptation resistance task, in which children promised not to cheat in the game. Two studies with 3‐ and 5‐year‐old children (total N = 323) assessed this possibility. In Study 1, participants were assigned to one of three conditions: a smart reputation condition in which they were told they have a reputation for being smart, an irrelevant reputation control condition, or a no reputation control condition. Children in the smart reputation condition were significantly more likely to cheat than their counterparts in either control condition. Study 2 confirmed that reputational concerns are indeed a fundamental part of our smart reputation effect. These results suggest that children as young as 3 years of age are able to use reputational cues to guide their behavior, and that telling young children they have a positive reputation for being smart can have negative consequences.     

Southern College Students' Cheating Behaviors: An Examination of Problem Behavior Correlates

ABSTRACT

Understandings of cheating behavior by college students have focused on identifying rates at which students cheat and the identification of demographic characteristics. This paper focuses on demographic and other problem behaviors associated with cheating. Male and female samples from 12 southern colleges/universities are examined separately. Results show that males who cheat are more likely to be involved in four of seven other problem behaviors; females who cheat are likely to be involved in only one of seven other problematic behaviors. These findings suggest that cheating may be part of a larger problem behavior orientation for males but not females.     

Intentions to Cheat: Ajzen's Planned Behavior and Goal-Related Personality Facets

This study sought to test antecedents to college students’ intentions to cheat by utilizing Ajzen's (1991 Ajzen, I. (1991). The theory of planned behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 50(2), 179–211. doi:org/10.1016/0749-5978(91)90020-T[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) theory of planned behavior (TPB), and four goal-related personality facets. Those facets were behavioral approach, behavioral inhibition, need for achievement–hope of success, and need for achievement–fear of failure. As hypothesized, perceived friends’ and parents’ attitudes toward academic dishonesty (two subjective norms) and perceived ease of cheating (perceived behavioral control) all positively predicted overall intentions to cheat. Perceived friends’ attitudes seemed to play a more influential role than perceived parents’ attitudes. Interestingly, male students reported greater parental acceptance of academic misconduct than female students reported. Among the personality facets, behavioral approach and need for achievement–hope of success were positive and negative predictors of cheating intentions, respectively. A more fine-grained examination of take-home assignments revealed that students considered them easier to cheat on and reported greater intentions to cheat on them in comparison to other forms of academic work (e.g., exams and papers). Also, need for achievement–fear of failure positively predicted intentions to cheat on take-home assignments, but not other cheating intentions. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

Do Birds of a Feather Cheat Together? How Personality and Relationships Affect Student Cheating

Academic misconduct is widespread in schools, colleges, and universities and it appears to be an international phenomenon that also spills over into the workplace (Nonis and Swift 2001; Sims 1993; Stone et al. 2011). To this end, while a great deal of research has investigated various individual components such as, demographic, personality and situational factors that contribute to cheating, research has yet to examine why students help others cheat and which students are being asked to help others cheat. In this study, we investigated if the closeness of the relationship to the individual requesting help in cheating to the individual being asked to help cheat, influenced the decision to help cheat. We also investigated if past cheating behavior predicted how an individual would respond to requests to cheat. Additionally, we sought to answer the following questions; whether minor cheating is more prevalent than serious cheating, what personality factors predict helping others cheat, who is helped, and how people rationalize helping others cheat. Results indicate minor cheating to be more prevalent, prudent personalities are less likely to have cheated or to help others cheat, individuals are more likely to help friends cheat than to help strangers, and past cheating behaviors is indicative of helping others to cheat. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Machiavellianism and spontaneous cheating in competition

Seventy-two undergraduates were assigned to groups defined by the combinations of the factors opportunity to cheat (yes, no), type of competition (personal, impersonal), and subject Machiavellianism (high, low). As predicted, cheating occurred in the opportunity to cheat, impersonal competition, high Mach group and in the opportunity to cheat, personal competition, low Mach group, extending the results of previous Machiavellianism research from situations in which cheating was explicitly encouraged by another person to a situation in which cheating was undertaken at the subject's own initiative.     

The relationship between cheating behavior and sensation-seeking

Academic dishonesty is a problem in academia and cheating is a problem in society at large. Sensation-seeking was proposed as a personality trait that is positively related to one’s likelihood to cheat. A sample of 105 undergraduates participated in a research activity for course credit where cheating on a trivia game to win a cash prize by taking answers from a sealed folder was an option. As anticipated, sensation-seeking predicted cheating. Consistent with previous research, males were also more likely to cheat than females. Targeted interventions are suggested as a possible remedy.     

The use of item scores and response times to detect examinees who may have benefited from item preknowledge

According to Wollack and Schoenig (2018, The Sage encyclopedia of educational research, measurement, and evaluation. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 260), benefiting from item preknowledge is one of the three broad types of test fraud that occur in educational assessments. We use tools from constrained statistical inference to suggest a new statistic that is based on item scores and response times and can be used to detect examinees who may have benefited from item preknowledge for the case when the set of compromised items is known. The asymptotic distribution of the new statistic under no preknowledge is proved to be a simple mixture of two χ² distributions. We perform a detailed simulation study to show that the Type I error rate of the new statistic is very close to the nominal level and that the power of the new statistic is satisfactory in comparison to that of the existing statistics for detecting item preknowledge based on both item scores and response times. We also include a real data example to demonstrate the usefulness of the suggested statistic.