The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty

My observations of on-campus cheating and my 30,000-foot musings about social infection were, of course, just speculations. To acquire a more informed view of the infectious nature of cheating, Francesca Gino, Shahar Ayal (a professor at the Interdisciplinary Center in Israel), and I decided to set up a few experiments at Carnegie Mellon University, where Francesca was visiting at the time. We set up the matrix task in the same general way I described earlier (although we used an easier version of the task), but with a few important differences. The first was that along with the worksheets containing the matrices, the experimenter handed out a manila envelope containing $10 worth of cash (eight $1 bills and four half-dollar coins) to each participant. This change in payment procedure meant that at the end of the experiment, the participants paid themselves and left behind their unearned cash.

In the control condition, in which there was no opportunity for cheating, a student who solved seven questions in the allotted time counted how many problems she solved correctly, withdrew the appropriate amount of money from the manila envelope, and placed the money in her wallet. Then the participant handed the worksheet and envelope with the unearned cash back to the experimenter, who checked the worksheet, counted the remaining money in the envelope, and sent the student away with her earnings. So far, so good.

In the shredder condition, the instructions were a bit different. In this condition the experimenter told the participants, “After you count your answers, head over to the shredder at the back of the room, shred your questionnaire, then walk back to your seat and take the amount of money you have earned from the manila envelope. After that, you are free to leave. On your way out, toss the envelope with the unearned money into the box by the door.” Then she told the participants to start on the test and began reading a thick book (to make it clear that no one was watching). After the five minutes were over, the experimenter announced that the time was up. The participants put down their pencils, counted the number of their correct answers, shredded their worksheets, walked back to their seat, paid themselves, and on their way out tossed their envelopes containing the leftover money into the box. Not surprisingly, we found that participants in the shredder condition claimed to have solved more matrices than those in the control condition.

These two conditions created the starting point from which we could test what we really wanted to look at: the social component of cheating. Next, we took the shredder condition (in which cheating was possible) and added a social element to it. What would happen if our participants could observe someone else—a Madoff in the making—cheating egregiously? Would it alter their level of cheating?

Imagine that you are a participant in our so-called Madoff condition. You’re seated at a desk, and the experimenter gives you and your fellow participants the instructions. “You may begin!” she announces. You dive into the problem set, trying to solve as many matrices as possible to maximize your earnings. About sixty seconds pass, and you’re still on the first question. The clock is ticking.

“I’ve finished!” a tall, skinny, blond-haired guy says as he stands up and looks at the experimenter. “What should I do now?”

“Impossible,” you think. “I haven’t even solved the first matrix!” You and everyone else stare at him in disbelief. Obviously, he’s cheated. Nobody could have completed all twenty matrices in less than sixty seconds.

“Go shred your worksheet,” the instructor tells him. The guy walks to the back of the room, shreds his worksheet, and then says, “I solved everything, so my envelope for the extra money is empty. What should I do with it?”

“If you don’t have money to return,” the experimenter replies, unfazed, “put the empty envelope in the box, and you are free to go.” The student thanks her, waves good-bye to everyone, and leaves the room smiling, having pocketed the entire amount. Having observed this episode, how do you react? Do you become outraged that the guy cheated and got away with it? Do you change your own moral behavior? Do you cheat less? More?

It may make you feel slightly better to know that the fellow who cheated so outrageously was an acting student named David, whom we hired to play this role. We wanted to see if observing David’s outrageous behavior would cause the real participants to follow his example, catching the “immorality virus,” so to speak, and start cheating more themselves.

Here’s what we found. In the Madoff condition, our participants claimed to have solved an average of fifteen out of twenty matrices, an additional eight matrices beyond the control condition, and an additional three matrices beyond the shredder condition. In short, those in the Madoff condition paid themselves for roughly double the number of answers they actually got right.