Cheating

The income tax deadline approaches and some taxpayers' thoughts turn to it. Test time approaches and some students' thoughts turn to it.

"You want something you can't get by behaving within the rules, and you want it badly, so you will do it regardless of any guilt or deep regret, and you are willing to run the risk of being caught." That's how Ladd Wheeler, psychology professor at the University of Rochester in New York, defines cheating.

Many experts believe cheating is on the rise. "We're suffering a moral breakdown." Pinkard says, "We're seeing more of the kind of person who regards the world as a series of things to be dealt with. Whether to cheat depends on whether it's in the person's interest." He does, however, see less cheating among the youngest students.

Richard Diensbier, psychology professor at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, believes that society's attitudes account for much of the upsurge in cheating. Twenty years ago, if a person cheated in college, society said: "That is extremely serious, you will be dropped for a semester if not kicked out permanently." He says. "Nowadays, at the University of Nebraska, for example, it is the stated policy of the College of Arts and Sciences that if a student cheats on an exam, the student must receive an "F" on what he cheated on. That is nothing. If you are going to flunk anyway, why not cheat?"

"Cheating is most likely in situation where the vital interests are higher and the chances of getting caught are low," says social psychologist Lynn Kahle of the University of Oregon in Eugen.