our action seem more socially acceptable in our own eyes? Going to such lengths to justify our bad behavior might seem over the top, but we often take comfort when our actions fall in line with the social norms of those around us.
Infectious Cheating in Class
After my experience with the vending machine, I started observing the infectious nature of cheating in other places as well—including in my own classes. At the start of the semester a few years ago, I asked the five hundred undergraduate students in my behavioral economics class how many of them believed that they could listen carefully in class while using their computers for non-class-related activities (Facebook, Internet, e-mail, and so on). Thankfully, most of them indicated that they couldn’t really multitask very well (which is true). I then asked how many of them had enough self-control to avoid using their laptop for non-class-related activities if it was open in front of them. Almost no one raised a hand.
At that point I was conflicted between prohibiting laptops in the classroom (which are of course useful for taking notes) or allowing laptops but, to help the students fight their lack of self-control, adding some intervention. Being an optimist, I asked the students to raise their right hands and repeat after me, “I will never, never, never use my computer in this course for anything that is not class-related. I will not read or send e-mail; I will not use Facebook or other social networks; and I will not use the Internet to explore any non-class-related material during class time.”
The students repeated these words after me, and I was rather pleased with myself—for a while.
From time to time I show videos in class both to illustrate a point and to give the students a change in pace and attention. I usually take this time to walk to the back of the class and watch the videos with the students from there. Of course, standing at the back of the class also gives me a direct line of sight to the screens of the students’ laptops. During the first few weeks of the semester their screens shone only with class-related material. But as the semester drew on—like mushrooms after the rain—I noticed that every week more and more of the screens were opened to very familiar but non-class-related websites and that Facebook and e-mail programs were often front and center.
In retrospect, I think that the darkness that accompanied the videos was one of the culprits in the deterioration of the students’ promise. Once the class was in darkness and one student used his laptop for a non-class-related activity, even for just one minute, many of the other students, not just me, could see what he was doing. That most likely led more students to follow the same pattern of misbehavior. As I discovered, the honesty pledge was helpful in the beginning, but ultimately it was no match for the power of the emerging social norm that came from observing the misbehavior of others.*
One Bad Apple
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.
