Cheating Contagion

I'm not proud of it but like most people I cheated a bit when I was in school (95% of high school students say they have cheated at some time). In the end of course, I cheated myself but that's a tough lesson to learn when you're young.

With the Google, internet capable cell phones, and a slew of other tiny digital devices it must be far easier to cheat these days than 20 or 30 years ago. But the real issue isn't access to the means to cheat but why we cheat in the first place.

A recent study from researchers at Duke tries to answer that question.

From Newsweek...

So why do some people cheat and others don't? The classical explanation is that it's a rational choice, a cold calculation of cost and benefit. Can I get away with it, and how much can I get away with before I risk getting caught? But some scientists have begun questioning this cynical view of human ethics and suggest that the decision is much more complex than this simple calculation...

Three psychologists recently decided to explore these knotty ethical questions in the laboratory. Francesca Gino of the University of North Carolina and Shahar Ayal and Dan Ariely of Duke University set up an elaborate hoax to see if they could actually make people cheat—in order to illuminate the psychological forces at work in the dishonest mind.

The methodology the researchers used was pretty interesting as are the results. To find out the outcome of the experiment, click here.