Business Day, South Africa
11-30-07
Street Dogs: Why we cheat and how we justify it
MOST of us know the difference between right and wrong, and consider cheating
to be wrong. But we cheat anyway. Why? According to an American study coauthored by three professors at Iowa State University and a former colleague,
Tim West, we cheat because we’re able to distance ourselves from our unethical
actions — by rationalising them.
The study was prompted by a situation West encountered after he gave students
a take-home test they were supposed to complete alone.
Unknown to him, a fellow faculty member had posted an answer key on the
Internet. Students soon discovered the key and many — at least 47 of the 64 —
accessed it. Unknown to them, the school was able to track who they were.
West threw out the test results and persuaded the students to anonymously
answer a series of questions about what they’d done and why they’d done it.
As he says: “We were just lucky to get this incredible data that normally you don’t
get. You usually have suspicions of cheating and things like that, but rarely do
you have ‘Yeah, we cheated and let me tell you why we did it.’"
Some students blamed a third party or claimed they would not have cheated if
someone else had not interfered.
Others made moral distinctions between themselves and the action. “The
reasoning here is that ‘I did the action but I am not the kind of person to do that’, "
West says.
“Focusing on this differentiation allows the actor to avoid personal responsibility
and distance themselves from the behaviour."
Another method students used to distance themselves involved focusing on
something good about the action while ignoring its negative aspects. They
rationalised that collaborating was good if it was done to help someone learn.
The result was that students acknowledged that they had participated in the
unethical action, but they were able to distance themselves from its
wrongfulness.
Other students argued that the act was socially acceptable. Yet others focussed
on alternative outcomes from the behaviour. These students acknowledged that
their behaviour was wrong but compared it to another situation that was more
wrong.
Finally, some students analysed the various outcomes and focussed on the
positive ones.
The point being, though, that all them found a way to justify their unethical
behaviour.
Napoleon was playing cards with his generals and staff to pass the time with his
army en route to Egypt. He heard one of his aides whispering in the background
and asked him to speak up. The aide stammered, “What I said, General, is that
you are not playing fairly."
Napoleon replied, “That’s true, but I always give the money back at the end of the
game." This prompted Murat, his legendary Marshal, to ask: “Then why do you
cheat?" Napoleon replied, “Because I want to leave nothing to chance."
Michel Pireu pireum@bdfm.co.za