Clever little lies: Math performance and cheating in primary schools in Congo

This paper provides a novel contribution on the relation between school performance and cheating behavior by analyzing a sample of 157 pupils in 10 primary schools located in the outskirts of Goma (Congo, DR). In two subsequent school years, children were administered a questionnaire that included a modified Dice Rolling Task (DRT) and a Dictator Game (DG), while information on their school performance was obtained through the collection of school reports. We analyze whether cheating (measured through DRT) could be explained by school performance (measured by Math and Total scores) when controlling for individual (such as age, sex, altruism and previously recorded cheating attitudes) and background (such as class, school, interviewer) characteristics. Our results show that cheating is positively and significantly correlated with better school performance. Our main contribution shows that children better at math, in contrast to generally high-performing students, are more likely to lie when rewards from lying (i.e. the difference between two dice in a given roll) are higher.