Down the Slippery Slope: Moral Disengagement and Academic Integrity’s Grey Areas

Abstract

Most students do not engage in serious cheating, but many engage in seemingly insignificant transgressions. While these small misgivings may be brushed aside as trivial, prior research shows that major ethical violations tend to follow small, common violations – the so-called slippery slope effect. In this study we combine computer-facilitated focus groups, an online survey and open-ended responses to identify when and why students think it is acceptable to engage in both specific minor academic integrity violations and violations more generally. We also demonstrate that the slippery slope effect occurs in academia as students who find it acceptable to violate academic integrity in more “grey area” situations also engage in more trivial and non-trivial academic integrity violations in general. We analyze our findings using mechanisms of moral disengagement and neutralization theory to categorize why students violate academic integrity and find that the mechanisms they use to justify engaging in specific trivial violations differ from those they use to justify violating academic integrity more generally. We conclude with recommendations that directly address ways that faculty and administration can neutralize the mechanisms that students use to morally disengage both in relation to specific trivial violations as well as more generally.