ECN 340 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Profit Motive, Morality
23 May 2018
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Lecture 11: Cheating and Lying
Cheating and Lying
• Cheating and lying is about breaking social rules
• What promotes and reduces cheating and lying? And why people do it. In the context of
post-secondary education
The Prevalence of Cheating
• Continual problem at all educational institutions
• 30-40% of students cheat
• In experiments, a moral appeal had no effect whatsoever
• In one instance a moral appeal led to more cheating! – Cheating is prevalent!
• Threat to be checked reduced cheating
• More loale ad uderstadig the istrutor, the ore heatig ourred
• Which student is most likely to cheat? One with an average of 48% or 68%? The person
who has more to lose will cheat which will be the better student than one that is just
barely passing by. What drives people is the need. Whoever needs it more
• Those most in need of marks most likely to take greater risk to cheat
• The greater the utility of an act the more likely it is to be undertaken, thus the more
potential punishment needed to deter it
• “till, o oe is hoest or dishoest ature - it depends on the incentive or
disincentive
• The individual asks: what are the gains and losses from cheating
• Given the importance of marks at the college/university level, it is not surprising that
cheating in some form or other is so prevalent
The Economics of Cheating
• What are the gains and losses of cheating and who gets hurt?
• The cost to the cheater:
o Bad conscience – feeling guilty
o But hat if there is o osiee = o iteral ostraits
o Internal vs. external constraints – police are an external constraint if you kill
someone. If dropping wallet in a religious area not too concerned. Because
religious people have more internal constraints
• A oral studet a heat uder the right irustaes Which?) If the person
thinks they can get away with it
• A ioral studets a ot heat uder ertai irustaes Whih? he the
do’t thik the a get aa ith it. The epet to get aught
• There are not honest or dishonest people by definition
• Who is hurt most by student cheating?
• Is the professor hurt by the cheating? No, gets paid either way but would be upset
• Most of the cost of cheating is borne by other students because it devalues their
achievements
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Document Summary
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