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Do Higher Achievers Cheat Less? An Experiment of Self-Revealing Individual Cheating

Author

Listed:
  • Siniver, Erez

    (College of Management, Rishon Lezion Campus)

  • Tobol, Yossef

    (Jerusalem College of Technology (JTC))

  • Yaniv, Gideon

    (Ariel University)

Abstract

The extensive body of survey-based research correlating between students' cheating and their academic grade point average (GPA) consistently finds a significant negative relationship between cheating and the GPA. The present paper reports the results of a two-round experiment designed to expose student cheating at the individual level and correlate it with three intellectual achievement measures: the GPA, the high-school matriculation average grade (MAG) and the psychometric exam score (PES). The experiment involved two classes of third-year economics students incentivized by a competitive reward to answer a multiple-choice trivia quiz without consulting their electronic devices. While this forbiddance was deliberately overlooked in the first round, providing an opportunity to cheat, it was strictly enforced in the second, conducted two months later in the same classes with the same quiz. A comparison of subjects' performance in the two rounds, self-revealed a considerable extent of cheating in the first one. Regressing the individual cheating levels on subjects' gender and their intellectual achievement measures exhibited no significant differences in cheating between males and females. However, cheating of both genders was found to significantly increase with each achievement measure, implying, in sharp contrast with the direct-question surveys, that higher achievers are bigger cheaters.

Suggested Citation

  • Siniver, Erez & Tobol, Yossef & Yaniv, Gideon, 2017. "Do Higher Achievers Cheat Less? An Experiment of Self-Revealing Individual Cheating," IZA Discussion Papers 10709, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
  • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10709
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Siniver, Erez & Yaniv, Gideon, 2018. "Losing a real-life lottery and dishonest behavior," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 26-30.
    2. Azar, Ofer H. & Applebaum, Mark, 2020. "Do children cheat to be honored? A natural experiment on dishonesty in a math competition," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 143-157.
    3. Siniver, Erez, 2021. "Do Happy People Cheat Less? A Field Experiment on Dishonesty," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    4. Alan, Sule & Ertac, Seda & Gumren, Mert, 2020. "Cheating and incentives in a performance context: Evidence from a field experiment on children," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 681-701.
    5. Vazquez, Jose J. & Chiang, Eric P. & Sarmiento-Barbieri, Ignacio, 2021. "Can we stay one step ahead of cheaters? A field experiment in proctoring online open book exams," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    6. Ximena Garcia-Rada & Heather E. Mann & Lars Hornuf & Matthias Sohn & Juan Tafurt & Edwin S. Iversen Jr & Dan Ariely, 2018. "The Adaptive Liar: An Interactionist Approach of Multiple Dishonesty Domains," CESifo Working Paper Series 7215, CESifo.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    intellectual achievement; cheating behavior; experimental data;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • A22 - General Economics and Teaching - - Economic Education and Teaching of Economics - - - Undergraduate
    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior
    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law

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