Dishonest Behavior Research Articles

Predicting Academic Dishonesty: The Role of Psychopathic Traits, Perception of Academic Dishonesty, Moral Disengagement and Motivation

This study conducted on a sample of 295 Dutch and Italian undergraduate and graduate students aims to investigate how psychopathic personality traits (meanness, boldness and disinhibition) may lead to cheating behavior, and to study whether there are correlations between psychopathic traits, motivation, moral disengagement, the perception of seriousness of academic dishonesty and frequency of academic dishonesty to try to better understand what causes students to cheat and engage in dishonest conduct. Results confirmed the key role of psychopathic traits, particularly the disinhibition aspect in predicting academic dishonesty. In addition, it was shown that students’ perceptions of what constitutes academic dishonesty and what does not are also important in predicting the frequency of dishonest behavior. Furthermore, the role of motivation and moral disengagement in predicting and mediating the relationship between traits of psychopathy and academic dishonesty were analyzed through mediation and regression analysis.

The effect of experiences of fairness on honest behavior: a behavioral and neural study.

Prior studies have investigated the relationship between fairness and honesty. However, the differences in the focus of these studies have rendered cross-comparisons between them challenging and of limited value. Thus, this study explored how fairness impacts honest decision-making, focusing specifically on the effect of individuals' experiences of fairness on their honest behavior. Experiment 1 explored the influence of different experiences of fairness on honest behavior in an altruistic context. In Experiment 2, we measured event-related potentials to further demonstrate the brain mechanisms of these experiences on altruistic dishonest behavior. In Experiment 1, we found that the reaction time for dishonest behavior was shorter for individuals who had positive unfairness experiences with high altruistic objects compared to low altruistic objects. Individuals who had negative unfairness experiences had shorter reaction times when engaging in dishonest behaviors for the sake of high altruistic objects compared to those with equitable experiences. In Experiment 2, in which there was an opportunity to lie for a highly altruistic object, those with fair experiences had greater N2 volatility and smaller P3 volatility than those with positive unfairness experiences. These findings highlight the value of integrating moral psychology and behavioral economics. Discriminant validity across fairness experiences can help illuminate the different motivations behind moral decisions.

Perceptions of Academic Dishonesty: Insights from the University of Tehran

In recent times, Iran has seen an increase in various forms of academic dishonesty. The frequency of academic fraud, plagiarism, and cheating has led to efforts to rebuild the global reputation of Iranian academic institutions. We argue that academic dishonesty adversely affects not only the academic sphere but society as a whole, and addressing it requires an understanding of its various contributing factors. To this end, we undertook a study involving students from three different faculties at the University of Tehran. The study included 300 undergraduate students (182 females and 118 males), aged between 17 to 34 years (average age 20.55, standard deviation 2.04), from the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Faculty of Management, and Faculty of Social Sciences. While only minor differences were observed among students from these three faculties, significant variations were noted in the perceptions of academic dishonesty among students from different academic years, including their views on professors' and peers' dishonest behaviors, and the justifiability of academic dishonesty.

How often do you cheat? Dispositional influences and intrapersonal stability of dishonest behavior.

Dishonesty, including lying, cheating, deception, and deviating from societal norms, has far-reaching implications across various aspects of modern society. From minor consequences like social discontent to severe outcomes such as economic damage through tax evasion, dishonest behavior affects us in multiple ways. This study investigates whether gender and psychological traits contribute to dishonest behavior, and whether unethical conduct is stable across diverse tasks. We examined 63 participants using a "Difference Spotting Task" (DST) and two motor tasks (1. coordinative throwing; 2. isometric strength). Dishonesty was measured by comparing self-reported performance with actual performance, allowing for a comprehensive analysis of both occurrence and extent of dishonesty. Our findings indicate that gender does not significantly influence the occurrence or extent of dishonest behavior. Moreover, we discovered that "Social Desirability" positively influences the extent of dishonesty, while "Task Orientation" increases the likelihood of engaging in dishonest acts. The study also reveals that the level of dishonesty remains relatively stable across all three tasks at an intrapersonal level.

Government Subsidies and Policies for Mask Production Under COVID-19: Is It Wise to Control Less?

Under the COVID-19 pandemic, governments worldwide have subsidized manufacturers or consumers on the production or purchase of masks. However, the impacts of these subsidies on the mask supply chain (MSC) operations are unclear. Motivated by our interview with a mask manufacturer as well as the observed real-world practices, we establish consumer utility-based stylized models to analytically examine government subsidies and policies in the MSC. We utilize the infection transmission model to capture the social health risk during the COVID-19 outbreak. The government aims to maximize social welfare, which includes the manufacturer's profit, consumer surplus, social health risk, and government subsidy expenditure. Results indicate that when the price is not controlled (i.e., the manufacturer decides it), the manufacturer and consumer subsidy programs are equally efficient in enhancing consumer surplus as well as reducing harm to social health risk under COVID-19. Thus, the government can conduct a subsidy scheme that is easier to implement in practice. However, we surprisingly find that the government's excessive intervention will cause disequilibrium in the MSC. When the price or the manufacturer's dishonest behavior is fully controlled by the government, subsidizing the MSC is not always advisable. Besides, our findings are consistent with the public interest theory; that is, the proper implementation of dishonesty prevention and pricing control policies can improve social welfare but sacrifice consumer surplus. Our results contribute to healthcare operations management and generate managerial insights for MSC management during COVID-19 with industrial validation.

The development of the Vatican’s sports diplomacy tools in the 21st century

The article discusses the Vatican's public diplomacy tools, specifically the phenomenon of sports diplomacy. Sports diplomacy is a new tool for the realization of soft power by the Vatican, which gained its relevance during the pontificate of Francis I. This type of cultural diplomacy is characterized by significant dynamism, connection with socio-economic and political trends, and for a long time was out of the Vatican's sight due to moral and ethical contradictions inherent in this type of public diplomacy, as well as the lack of resources for the implementation of initiatives in this area. The contradictory nature of sports diplomacy for the Vatican is due, on the one hand, to the "ideal" sport's focus on the cultivation of moral and ethical values approved by the Roman Catholic Church (compassion, respect, love, harmony, and joy), and, on the other hand, to the political engagement and business orientation of "real" professional sport. Due to the traditional role of the RCC as a source of moral and ethical guidelines for Catholic society, sports diplomacy for the Vatican involves significant reputational risks. These risks stem from many factors, among them: the exploitation of athletes, the spread of dishonest sporting behavior (e.g., doping) within sports organizations, and the inconsistency with the values imposed by the sports industry, among them body worship, hedonism, consumerism, hoarding, individualism, and the obsession with success. In many ways, the emergence of this tool has been a forced measure and is linked to the changing territorial distribution and national composition of Catholicism, which has necessitated the need to find new ways to establish a dialogue with the Vatican's target audience, which is predominantly made up of people from developing countries in the global South. These circumstances have led to a decline in the popularity of the RCC and its doctrines, as well as a decline in the attractiveness of the Christian way of life and Christian values among believers. They have also become an indicator for the RCC of the need to respond to the changes that have taken place and to seek new tools of public diplomacy that can bring the Church back to the attention of its target audience. The article examines the Vatican's views on the values of sport and the sports industry, discussing their relevance to Christian values, as well as acceptable formats for the Vatican's participation in the sporting life of society. The article discusses the Vatican's priorities, including its predominant focus on amateur sports. At the same time, it reveals evidence of the Vatican's intention to increase its representation in professional sports, which is expressed in the creation of specialized agencies, inclusion in sports associations and societies, and involvement of professional athletes. The current limitations of Vatican sports diplomacy are also examined. Conclusions are drawn about the Vatican's interest in the development of sports diplomacy and its desire to use this tool to achieve strategic goals.

Participant Misrepresentation in Online Focus Groups: Red Flags and Proactive Measures.

Covid-19 public health measures prompted a significant increase in online research. This approach has several benefits over face-to-face data-collection methods, including lower cost and wider geographical reach of participants. Yet when the online data-collection instrument is a survey, there are also well-documented drawbacks of participant misrepresentation and related data-authenticity issues. However, the scholarly literature has not looked at participant misrepresentation in online focus-group empirical research. This case study communicates a concerning situation that arose during our research project: dishonest participant behavior threatened the integrity and validity of our data collected through online focus-group sessions as well as e-surveys. We describe the study context, initial red flags alerting us to the issue, subsequent investigations, and implications for research ethics, funding, and data quality. We conclude with a discussion of potential steps to safeguard future online focus-group research against similar issues.

Differential private knowledge trading in vehicular federated learning using contract theory

In vehicular differentially private federated learning, the personalized differential privacy mechanism allows vehicles to customize their local privacy budget. However, it leads to uneven utility across datasets. Therefore, model owners must consider the unevenness in utility within the incentive mechanisms to enhance learning performance. Due to limitations in system resources, servers in the Internet of Vehicles should prioritize the selection of high-utility datasets before initiating the learning process. Since existing utility evaluation schemes are costly and inefficient, we propose a knowledge trading framework based on prior utility evaluation and contract theory. Specifically, we first derive a utility evaluation function that captures the functional relationship between utility and privacy elements, such as privacy cost, sensitivity, and learning rounds. These elements are shared as hyperparameters among vehicles and servers for utility evaluation. In the presence of information asymmetry, we utilize the self-revealing property of contract theory to mitigate dishonest behavior. The learning process is modeled as an optimization function that incorporates utility and privacy costs. The complexity is further reduced by utilizing the monotonicity of the utility function. Experimental results based on multiple models and datasets illustrate that our scheme outperforms existing schemes in terms of convergence and accuracy.

Darkness promotes dishonesty in a coin toss task: A pre-registered conceptual replication of Experiment 1 of Zhong, Bohns, and Gino (2010).

An earlier study suggested that individuals tend to be more dishonest in darker environments, this phenomenon was attributed to an increase in participants' perceived anonymity. However, instead of using quantifiable measurements, the original experiment depended on the experimenter's subjective observation to construct different brightness conditions, which led to a less precise understanding of the phenomenon. Additionally, the task used in the original experiment has recently been criticized as being unsuitable for dishonesty-detection studies. This study addressed these concerns to retest the effect of brightness on dishonest behavior. This study employed lux as a unit to accurately control the brightness within the experiment room. Moreover, the coin toss task which is frequently employed in dishonesty-detection experiments, was utilized instead of the task in the original experiment. The findings revealed that despite altering the content of the task, dishonesty increased in the dark condition. Contrary to the findings in the original experiment, however, the results did not substantiate that perceived anonymity was the driving factor of the effect of brightness on dishonesty. This discrepancy suggests that further empirical considerations are warranted to unravel the underlying mechanisms.

Gender-based differences in the impact of Dark Triad traits on academic dishonesty: The mediating role of moral disengagement in college students

This study explores whether gender differences influence the components of the Dark Triad of personality and moral disengagement on the manifestations of dishonest academic behavior in Peruvian university students. Moreover, it evaluates how moral disengagement mediates the effect that the Dark Triad components have on academic dishonesty. The participants were 591 university students, aged between 18 and 40 years (women = 71.7 %; Mage = 21.5; SDage = 3.60), to whom the Dirty Dozen Dark Triad, the Propensity to Morally Disengage Scale, and the Scale of Academic Dishonesty, which has 3 dimensions (cheating on exams, plagiarism, and falsification) were applied. The results reveal that only Machiavellianism has a significant and consistent influence on all dimensions of academic dishonesty, in both men and women, while psychopathy influences the dimension of plagiarism in both men and women and falsification only in men. In addition, moral disengagement affects falsification in both groups, cheating on exams only in the men's group, and plagiarism in the women's group. Finally, the mediating role of moral disengagement between the effect of the Dark Triad and the manifestations of academic dishonesty was not demonstrated.

Dishonesty and Public Employment

We exploit a natural experiment to study the causal link between dishonest behavior and public employment. When military conscription was mandatory in Argentina, eligibility was determined by both a lottery and a medical examination. To avoid conscription, individuals at risk of being drafted had strong incentives to cheat in their medical examination. These incentives varied with the lottery number. Exploiting this exogenous variation, we first present evidence of cheating in medical examinations. We then show that individuals with a higher probability of having cheated in health checks exhibit a higher propensity to occupy nonmeritocratic public sector jobs later in life. (JEL D91, J45, K42, O15)

Creative thinking does not promote dishonesty.

We assessed the relation of creativity and unethical behaviour by manipulating the thinking style of participants (N = 450 adults) and measuring the impact of this manipulation on the prevalence of dishonest behaviour. Participants performed one of three inducer tasks: the alternative uses task to promote divergent thinking, the remote associates task to promote convergent thinking, or a simple classification task for rule-based thinking. Before and after this manipulation, participants conducted the mind game as a straightforward measure of dishonesty. Dishonest behaviour increased from before to after the intervention, but we found no credible evidence that this increase differed between induced mindsets. Exploratory analyses did not support any relation of trait creativity and dishonesty either. We conclude that the influence of creative thinking on unethical behaviour seems to be more ambiguous than assumed in earlier research or might be restricted to specific populations or contexts.

Dynamic Evolution of Repeated Pledge in FTW from the Perspective of Blockchain Empowerment

Due to information asymmetry, finance, transportation and warehouse financing gives rise to the issue of repeated pledge, which amplifies the risk of the loan business of financial institutions. In tandem with advancements in fintech, blockchain technology plays a significant role in the supply chain finance realm, primarily because of its core characteristics of being difficult to tamper with and decentralized. Therefore, this study constructed an evolutionary game model involving financial institutions, small- and medium-sized enterprises, and third-party logistics enterprises under a blockchain-enabled model and scrutinized the repeated pledge of financing entities in the finance, transportation and warehouse financing sector from the perspective of blockchain empowerment. The results show that the platform access fee being lower than the cost of conducting a financing business and the immutable characteristics of blockchain are important reasons to promote financial institutions to choose access to blockchain. The permanent retention of performance records owing to immutable performance under the blockchain model intensifies the consequences of dishonest behavior of small- and medium-sized enterprises and third-party logistics enterprises, thus encouraging the adoption of positive financing strategies. Additionally, the additional income obtained by third-party logistics enterprises’ covering behavior surpasses the additional income obtained by the repeated pledge behavior of small- and medium-sized enterprises, which will dismantle collusion between them. This study serves as a valuable reference for decision makers in the development of supply chain finance empowered by fintech.

The Role of Just-World Beliefs in Predicting Dishonest Behavior

Abstract: Belief in a just world is considered an important personal variable in studies on moral behavior. However, previous studies have found conflicting results regarding the relationship between belief in a just world and dishonest behavior. The present study examines the role of belief in a just world (for the self and others) in their tendency to engage in dishonest behavior, especially in situations highlighting attention for either the self or others. The results indicated that the belief in a just world for others (other-BJW) positively predicted dishonest behavior, whereas the belief in a just world for self (self-BJW) did not. However, the present study also found that the association between other-BJW and dishonesty disappeared when participants’ attention was focused on themselves. Based on these results, we suggest that future studies explore the potential mediating effects of moral disengagement.

Does the world belong to the smart ones? Dishonest behavior in business schools

Purpose: the main objective of this study is to analyze the meanings and perceptions of graduate program students (master's and doctoral students) in Business Administration, as well as professors of graduate programs (PPGs) from different institutions, in relation to possible practices of dishonest behavior and plagiarism in the academic context. It highlights the causes, consequences and meanings of possible practices of dishonest behavior and plagiarism in the academic context, using the theoretical framework of possible reasons for plagiarism and dishonest behavior in this context. Design/methodology/approach: the perceptions of 28 professors and students were analyzed, extracted from semi-structured interviews and questionnaires, and later analyzed using Flores' categorical analysis, where the qualitative data were reduced, categorized, and coded, capturing the relevant meanings. Findings: the study highlights the phenomenon of academic dishonesty through reports from professors and students, listing four metacategories: meaning and perception of the phenomenon, causes, consequences and forms of combat, which in turn generated seven other categories. Practical implications: possible causes and implications of plagiarism are discussed, as well as ways to combat or mitigate the impact of these acts in Business Administration teaching programs, fostering the debate about these deleterious practices in the academic context. Originality/value: the paper highlights evidence of dishonest behavior in the academy, which is sometimes overlooked by several stricto sensu management postgraduate programs.

VIOLATION OF ETHICS BY PUBLIC OFFICIALS IN RELATION TO CORRUPTION CASES

The public ethics of state officials in the administration of clean government holds an important position and role as a guide for good behavior in carrying out their duties. The occurrence of political corruption is not solely attributed to the extent of authority possessed but is also rooted in the violation of the ethics of state officials. This study employs qualitative research methods and a literature approach to explore law violations stemming from breaches of state officials' ethics, focusing on the Hambalang Political Corruption case handled by the KPK. The investigation delves into how violations of state officials' ethics transpire, originating from both the executive and legislative branches.The breach of state officials' ethics in this case is linked to the struggle for interests in securing funds to support a candidate for the general chairmanship of a political party. Beyond implicating the executive and legislature, the corruption also involves the private sector. The manipulation of legal loopholes in preparing the APBN is exploited to inflate the value of the Hambalang project, resulting in substantial budgets, profits, and an escalation of corrupted funds. The case study reveals ethical violations by state officials, characterized by dishonest behavior, data manipulation, and a lack of transparency to secure approval for the Hambalang project. These ethical transgressions are coupled with legal violations, ultimately eroding public trust in endeavors to establish a corruption-free government, particularly concerning officials affiliated with political parties.

Dishonesty When the Game Is Unfair

Abstract: Although the link between economic inequality and dishonest behavior is well-established in the literature, their causal relation is still unclear. Here we investigate the causal link between economic inequality and dishonest behavior in a simulated society with high or low economic inequality, while holding middle-class status of the participants constant across conditions. Study 1 ( N = 479) focuses on tax evasion, showing that high (vs. low) economic inequality increases the tendency to not declare taxable income. Study 2 ( N = 228) analyzes cheating behavior, showing that participants under high (vs. low) economic inequality cheat more to increase their income. Together, the studies provide experimental evidence that economic inequality plays a causal role in dishonest behaviors, such as tax evasion and cheating.

Commitment to honesty oaths decreases dishonesty, but commitment to another individual does not affect dishonesty

Social commitment influences our behavior in various ways. Recent studies suggest that social commitment to other individuals or groups can increase dishonest behavior while feeling commitment to moral norms might decrease it. Here we show in a pre-registered series of 7 studies investigating the influence of social commitment on dishonest behavior by sampling 7566 participants across three countries (the UK, the US, and Mexico) that commitment to moral norms via honesty oaths might decrease dishonesty (OR = 0.79 [0.72, 0.88]). To the contrary, we found no credible evidence that social commitment to other individuals increases dishonesty (OR = 1.08 [0.97, 1.20]). Finally, we observed that commitment to moral norms was less effective if participants were committed to another individual at the same time (OR = 0.95 [0.86, 1.06]). Our findings point at the potential effectiveness of honesty oaths, while the observed effect sizes were small compared to previous studies.

Training the Moral Self: An 8-Week Mindfulness Meditation Program Leads to Reduced Dishonest Behavior and Increased Regulation of Interoceptive Awareness

ObjectivesRecent meta-analyses suggest that mindfulness meditation may enhance prosocial behavior, while evidence regarding moral behavior is still scarce. We combined a randomized controlled mindfulness training design with an ecologically valid moral decision-making task (Temptation to Lie Card Game; TLCG), in which participants were tempted to deceive an opponent to increase their monetary payoff.MethodTLCG and self-report measures (in the domains of attention regulation, body awareness, emotion regulation, and change in the perspective of the self) were administered to participants who underwent the mindfulness meditation training (experimental group, n = 44) or were waitlisted (control group, n = 25) twice: before and after the 8-week training.ResultsConcerning moral decision-making, we observed a significant effect involving condition, time, and group. Trained participants deceived significantly less in the post-training as compared with the pre-training phase (p = 0.03), while untrained ones showed no significant change (p = 0.58). In the self-reports, significant effects involving time and group were found for the Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness (MAIA-2) in Self-Regulation, Attention Regulation, Body Listening, and for the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ) in Non-Reactivity to inner experience. Trained participants showed a time-related increase in all subscales scores, while untrained ones did not. Finally, a moderation analysis revealed a significant interaction between weekly mindfulness meditation training minutes and MAIA-2 Attention Regulation (post-training) on moral behavior change.ConclusionsOur preliminary results suggest that mindfulness meditation practice decreases self-serving dishonest behavior and increases awareness of one’s bodily and emotional state. In particular, the amount of mindfulness meditation practice predicted moral behavior change in practitioners who reported the highest regulation of attention towards internal bodily signals.PreregistrationThis study is not preregistered.

Block chain-Based Federated Learning: Incentivizing Data Sharing and Penalizing Dishonest Behavior

With the increasing importance of data sharing for collaboration and innovation, it is becoming more important to ensure that data is managed and shared in a secure and trustworthy manner. Data governance is a common approach to managing data, but it faces many challenges such as data silos, data consistency, privacy, security, and access control. To address these challenges, this paper proposes a comprehensive framework that integrates data trust in federated learning with Inter Planetary File System, block chain, and smart contracts to facilitate secure and mutually beneficial data sharing while providing incentives, access control mechanisms, and penalizing any dishonest behavior. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed model is effective in improving the accuracy of federated learning models while ensuring the security and fairness of the data-sharing process. The research paper also presents a decentralized federated learning platform that successfully trained a CNN model on the MNIST dataset using block chain technology. The platform enables multiple workers to train the model simultaneously while maintaining data privacy and security. The decentralized architecture and use of block chain technology allow for efficient communication and coordination between workers. This platform has the potential to facilitate decentralized machine learning and support privacy preserving collaboration in various domains.