Imagine a world in which no one’s actions have consequences. A person can do absolutely anything in life to get ahead of one another with no repercussions whatsoever. Imagine how terrifying it would be knowing there were no moral guidelines to determine how to live life. Thankfully, that is not the world people live in. But that is how many cheaters view their actions, as having no ramifications. However, whether physical or mental, every action has a consequence. Most cheaters will get caught and their actions will have physical, mental, or emotional consequences. The one’s who do not get caught still pay for their actions by the guilt associated with knowing their actions are wrong. The psychological effects of cheating, long after the action is completed, shows how cheaters never win (Bergland 1). This shows how, even though physical actions may not be in place against the cheater, such as suspension, there still is a consequence for everyone’s actions. Unfortunately, many people undermine their actions and truly don’t understand that their actions are wrong. This is considered a conflict of morals and what can be considered acceptable and not acceptable in terms of human society. However, people’s lack of acceptance of their wrongdoings is not new, nor is the act of …show more content…
Cheating in sports can not only affect one’s future, but what they have accomplished in the past as well. Using answers from other students and cheating in school will affect a person’s whole future, not just an exam grade. Even when there are no physical consequences, there are still psychological consequences well-after the act of cheating has happened. Assuming blame on the things occurring around the cheater, does not make the act of cheating any more justified. Although cheating may be inevitable, learning the consequences of cheating and the moral detriments that occur from cheating may prevent further
When Professor John Doe assigned this reading assignment, I had really no idea what academic book would appeal to me. I definitely wanted to choose a book that would impact me in the long run and that I would benefit from. When I told my brother about the book, he said that he was just finishing a book called “The Cheating Culture, Why More Americans Are Doing More To Get Ahead” by, David Callahan. When he quickly explained what the book was about I knew that was the book I was going to read. I figured that this would be a good choice, because everywhere you look these days you see cheating. This book was published back in 2004 so even though it is a decade old, I do believe that many of the examples in the book are still problems, if not, even worse today than they were a decade ago. Weather it is kids in school, athletes, or the average business man. Everyone is cheating and trying to cut corners to get ahead. Nearly everyone has cheated in their life rather you would want to admit it or not. Reading this book, I was hoping to learn exactly why so many people try to cheat, and what alternatives people could take to prevent from cheating.
“For every clever person who goes to the trouble of creating an incentive scheme, there is an army of people, clever and otherwise, who will inevitably spend even more time trying to beat it. Cheating may or may not be human nature, but it is certainly a prominent feature in just about every human endeavor. Cheating is a primordial economic act: getting more or less” (21). This quote is important because it proves how everyone has cheated once. In many cases it is true, people often cheat on tests or even on their diet. Not everyone can live up to their expectations. Some may justify it, others proudly proclaim it, and others will try denying their cheating vigorously. Most people consider cheating as a bad and unwise action. In this novel, it gave two examples of cheaters, school teachers and sumo wrestlers. It shows how both authors can take two different people and still find something similar with both of them, like cheating.
The thing that confuses me are the reasons why people cheat. I know that in college life, it is clear that grades are important. Since grades are so important, people want to do better and want to succeed in their classes that they are taking. By cheating, it makes it easier for them to get a better grade. I agree that it is not an honest thing to do, but it is clear that they are doing it for a reason, to benefit themselves. Also, people want to help their friends succeed so that is another part of it. I think if schools wanted to get rid of cheating, they should not focus on the grades as much. Grading people is important, but is it that important if everyone cheats? I also see how people want to be viewed as honest. I do not think people want to cheat because they think they will be viewed as immoral. Also, they could be punished which would hurt them as well. If everyone cheats in schools, why not just allow it? That is the way that the world is running currently and everyone is cheating their way through
How do people behave when they face a number of chances to cheat with little or no risk of exposure? In this summary I will present the results of 4 studies made to determine whether or not people take advance of opportunities to cheat. This experiment is important to companies and institutions to know more about their employees and/or students’ behaviors when exposed to situations when they can or have a chance to cheat, if most institutions understand the behavior related to cheating and opportunities to so do, they can be more prepared to avoid this type of situations, and eventually to catch them.
People tend to blindly cheat to get what they want, and go about it as if it were normal. People don’t usually want to work for things if they can get it the easy way. In Stephen L. Carter’s article “The Rules about Rules”, Carter explains why Americans choose to cheat and how they don’t necessarily know right from wrong. Carter’s interpretation is accurate people do lack integrity due to having low self-esteem, and not having the courage to be different and separating themselves from the crowd.
In the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology article, “I Cheated, but Only a Little”: Partial Confessions to Unethical Behavior, Eyal Peer, Alessandro Acquisti, and Shaul Shalvi study the “occurrence, antecedents, consequences, and everyday prevalence of partial confessions.” Human beings primarily confess to escape the guilt they may have from committing whatever wrongful deed. Partial confessions, intermediate between omission and full confession, might seem attractive as they are more believeable than complete omission, but at the same time do not reveal every little detail of the behavior. This article documents whether partial confessions actually help people feel better emotionally.
In the past, being caught cheating was a source of great shame, but now expected. There are few things that make me as angry as cheating. I, and many others, put so much effort into doing something the right way, and along comes someone who could be good – perhaps not great, but good – and they shoot some drugs into their body, pay someone to write a paper, or claim a dead relative on their taxes as a dependent. For every cheater who comes out on top there are more who tried to do the right thing and miss out on scholarships, sponsors, and that one coveted slot at the Olympic
His results were very revealing and demonstrated several variables which promoted either higher or lower levels of cheating. The study found that if someone from the “in” crowd blatantly cheated and didn’t receive any repercussions, then the majority would follow suit with cheating. However, he found that if the individual cheating in front of everyone was an unknown person or belonged to a different group, the controlled group wouldn’t follow with cheating. Mr. Ariely reveled that humans are more apt to bend the moral code when others are already doing so unless the one pioneering the cheating is a paid actor in but not apart of the controlled group. In summery, when someone takes the first step and cheats in a group, it creates an atmosphere where it is acceptable and natural to cheat. In contrast, when a stranger among the group cheats, although, there is an increase in awareness of the cheating, there is less
Although Gino’s study (2014) provides evidence that the offer of a means of self reflection before being given an opportunity to cheat by prompting people to reflect on what kind of person they want to be how they want themselves to be perceived by others, therefore encouraging them to act in ways that are deemed socially admirable, “[reducing] their likelihood of behaving dishonestly” (Gino et al. 2014). Although the validity of this claim is well supported, the proposed link between time, money and morality is conclusively not strong enough to be relevant due to the weak link between the proposed hypothesis that money causes cheating. Further studies should investigate the effect of the self reflection prime on cheating that has been hypothetically caused by several variables, including money, in order to solidify the prior claim.
In conclusion, cheating is a dishonest action, and its effects could tremendously impact other people around. Alerting authority figures about dishonesty actions can help motivate students to learn the subjects thoroughly and build meaningful life experiences. Although we might lose a friendship, but in the long run, friends will be thankful, since who knows if they are in a situation, where they actually need to use their knowledge, in the workforce they are
Sometimes we are deciding between doing the right thing, or just drive on and pretend that nothing happened. It’s almost as if we do the right thing only when it’s convenient for us. We tell ourselves it is OK to cheat the system just this once, but then cheating becomes the norm. Over time, our definition of integrity becomes warped and we continue to waste energy inventing new ways to rationalize that we somehow still have
Stanford University’s mechanical engineer David L. Jaffe and Professor Drew Nelson discovered that while about 20% of college students admitted to cheating in high school during the 1940s, today between 75 and 85 percent of college students surveyed each year reported having cheated in high school. (Jaffe, David L and Nelson, Professor Drew) Why do people cheat?
In a moral context, it is important to understand the extension of unethical conduct on the field to the inevitable corruption of personal life that becomes part of societal interaction. This type of behavior can extend to sexual misconduct (rape, marital infidelity, etc.), violence, and criminal activity. In modern sporting culture, the popularity and great success of athletes tends to tempt tem into thinking that the game they play is also being played in their personal lives. This form of public personae affects the way they view lawful conduct and morality as a means to achieve success in family life, personal choices, and the management of their daily activities off the field. The public image dictates the way they interact with other people outside of their professional careers. More so, the promotion of immoral and unethical behaviors in sporting institutions set another precedent in which athletes are encouraged to behave through a gamesmanship model. The enculturation of corrupt business practices tend to create a culture of winning as the primary goal of attaining greater wealth and financial prosperity over the sportsmanship qualities that can increase the ethical and moral culture of athletic performance. These moral aspects of off-field behavior define the underlying extension of gamesmanship as a part of immoral behavior by professional athletes:
From a young age we are taught the differences between right and wrong, but as we get older the line between moral and immoral is often blurred. Things that were once thought of as unacceptable are now perfectly fine in our minds. Have you ever seen anyone cheat on an assignment or exam? Do you know anyone that’s been expelled from school for cheating? What if it was discovered that a U.S. senator plagiarized his college thesis paper? Imagine if it got out that one of the most respected universities in the U.S. was involved in a huge fraud scandal that involved thousands of students. Academic cheating is a terrible offense because it is unethical, self-degrading, and can be detrimental to the learning environment.
Cheating can set a pattern that can lead to a practice of lying that may involve more serious matters. In the first place, the harmlessness of cheating is notoriously disputable. What the cheater perceives as harmless or even beneficial may not be so in the eyes of the deceived.