Together, these results show not only that cheating is common but that it is infectious and can be increased by observing the bad behavior of others around us. Specifically, it seems that the social forces around us work in two different ways: When the cheater is part of our social group, we identify with that person and, as a consequence, feel that cheating is more socially acceptable. But when the person cheating is an outsider, it is harder to justify our misbehavior, and we become more ethical out of a desire to distance ourselves from that immoral person and from that other (much less moral) out-group.

More generally, these results show how crucial other people are in defining acceptable boundaries for our own behavior, including cheating. As long as we see other members of our own social groups behaving in ways that are outside the acceptable range, it’s likely that we too will recalibrate our internal moral compass and adopt their behavior as a model for our own. And if the member of our in-group happens to be an authority figure—a parent, boss, teacher, or someone else we respect—chances are even higher that we’ll be dragged along.

In with the In-Crowd

It’s one thing to get riled up about a bunch of college students cheating their university out of a few dollars (although even this cheating accumulates quickly); it’s quite another when cheating is institutionalized on a larger scale. When a few insiders deviate from the norm, they infect those around them, who in turn infect those around them, and so on—which is what I suspect occurred at Enron in 2001, on Wall Street leading up to 2008, and in many other cases.

One can easily imagine the following scenario: A well-known banker named Bob at Giantbank engages in shady dealings—overpricing some financial products, delaying reporting losses until the next year, and so on—and in the process he makes boatloads of money. Other bankers at Giantbank hear about what Bob is up to. They go out to lunch and, over their martinis and steaks, discuss what Bob is doing. In the next booth, some folks from Hugebank overhear them. Word gets around.

In a relatively short time, it is clear to many other bankers that Bob isn’t the only person to fudge some numbers. Moreover, they consider him as part of their in-group. To them, fudging the numbers now becomes accepted behavior, at least within the realm of “staying competitive” and “maximizing shareholder value.”*

Similarly, consider this scenario: one bank uses its government bailout money to pay out dividends to its shareholders (or maybe the bank just keeps the cash instead of lending it). Soon, the CEOs of other banks start viewing this as appropriate behavior. It is an easy process, a slippery slope. And it’s the kind of thing that happens all around us every day.

BANKING, OF COURSE, is not the only place this unfortunate kind of escalation takes place. You can find it anywhere, including governing bodies such as the U.S. Congress. One example of deteriorating social norms in the U.S. legislative halls involves political action committees (PACs). About thirty years ago, these groups were established as a way for members of Congress to raise money for their party and fellow lawmakers to use during difficult election battles. The money comes primarily from lobbyists, corporations, and special-interest groups, and the amounts they give are not restricted to the same degree as contributions to individual candidates. Aside from being taxed and having to be reported to the FEC, few restrictions are placed on the use of PAC money.

As you might imagine, members of Congress have gotten into the habit of using their PAC funds for a gamut of non-election-related activities—from babysitting bills to bar tabs, Colorado ski trips, and so on. What’s more, less than half of the millions of dollars raised by PACs has gone to politicians actually running in elections; the rest is commonly put toward different perks: fund-raising, overhead, staff, and other expenses. As Steve Henn of the NPR show Marketplace put it, “PACs put the fun in fundraising.”1

To deal with the misuse of PAC money, the very first law that Congress passed after the 2006 congressional election was intended to limit the discretionary spending of Congress members, forcing them to publicly disclose how they spent their PAC money. However, and somewhat predictably from our perspective, the legislation seemed to have no effect. Just a few weeks after passing the law, the congressmen were behaving as irresponsibly as they had before; some spent the PAC money going to strip clubs, blowing thousands of dollars on parties, and generally conducting themselves without a semblance of accountability.

How can this be? Very simple. Over time, as congressmen have witnessed fellow politicians using PAC funds in dubious ways, their collective social norm has taken a turn for the worse. Little by little, it’s been established that PACs can be used for all kinds of personal and “professional” activities—and now the misuse of PAC funds is as common as suits and ties in the nation’s capital. As Pete Sessions (a Republican congressman from Texas) responded when he was questioned about dropping several grand at the Forty Deuce in Las Vegas, “It’s hard for me to know what is normal or regular anymore.”2

You might suspect, given the polarization in Congress, that such negative social influences would be contained within parties. You might think that if a Democrat breaks the rules, his behavior would influence only other Democrats and that bad behavior by Republicans would influence only Republicans. But my own (limited) experience in Washington, D.C., suggests that away from the watchful eye of the media, the social practices of Democrats and Republicans (however disparate their ideologies) are much closer than we think. This creates the conditions under which the unethical behavior of any congressman can extend beyond party lines and influence other members, regardless of their affiliation.

ESSAY MILLS

In case you’re unfamiliar with them, essay mills are companies whose sole purpose is to generate essays for high school and college students (in exchange for a fee, of course). Sure, they claim that the papers are intended to help the students write their own original papers, but with names such as eCheat.com, their actual purpose is pretty clear. (By the way, the tagline of eCheat.com was at one point “It’s Not Cheating, It’s Collaborating.”)

Professors, in general, worry about essay mills and their impact on learning. But without any personal experience using essay mills and without any idea about what they really do or how good they are, it is hard to know how worried we should be. So Aline Gruneisen (the lab manager of my research center at Duke University) and I decided to check out some of the most popular essay mills. We ordered a set of typical college term papers from a few of the companies, and the topic of the paper we chose was (surprise!) “Cheating.”

Here is the task that we outsourced to the essay mills:

When and why do people cheat? Consider the social circumstances involved in dishonesty, and provide a thoughtful response to the topic of cheating. Address various forms of cheating (personal, at work, etc.) and how each of these can be rationalized by a social culture of cheating.

We requested a twelve-page term paper for a university-level social psychology class, using fifteen references, formatted in American Psychological Association (APA) style, to be completed in two weeks. This was, to our minds, a pretty basic and conventional request. The essay mills charged us from $150 to $216 per paper in advance.

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