Attitudes toward Cheating: General and Specific

Abstract

College freshmen were given one of two questionnaires, which asked how justified cheating would be in each of 32 situations. In one questionnaire, the situational variables were the interest level of the course, the meaningfulness of the tests, their difficulty, the teaching of the professor, and whether he leaves or stays during tests. In the other questionnaire, the variables were the warmth of the professor, the frequency with which he discovers cheating, the meaningfulness of the tests, whether they are essay or objective, and the student's grade in the course. The extent to which a student said cheating was justified was hypothesized to be a compromise between a negative attitude toward cheating in general and the need to defend it because situational pressures result in the temptation to cheat. The data showed the predicted J-curve of conformity for “good” situations, as well as the predicted deviation from this curve for “bad” situations. In contrast to previous data, it was found that the women said cheating was justified as often as and to the same degree as the men.