Food for Thought: The Psychology of Cheating

For more than five years, I proctored exams at Harvard University. During the first couple of years, the protocol was to accompany students whenever they left the room, even to the restroom. We were to check the bathroom stalls before the student entered to make sure that no one had left notes that could help a student on the exam they were taking. It was humiliating for the students and proctors alike. It sent a message that the students were not trustworthy. Sometime during those five years, the rules changed and although we still accompanied the students to the door of the restroom, we did not have to check the stalls or wait inside the restroom for them. I’m not sure what prompted the change, but I noticed that the students were much more relaxed and up-beat than students had been during the years under implicit suspicion of cheating was in place.

In an article about the psychology of cheating, the work of Dan Ariely was cited. Ariely is a behavioral economist at Duke University and notes that students are less likely to cheat on a test if they are asked to recall the Ten Commandments before the exam. Dr. Ariely found that this simple exercise “even works among the nonreligious.” Reader's Digest, May 2015, p.36

With all due respect to Dr. Ariely, I don’t think his attempt at a guilt trip would be any more effective, or less offensive, than accompanying students inside the restroom. It implies that students are inherently in need of being reminded of God’s law, and that even those who have not been brought up to believe in God would be positively affected by the obvious admonition to behave according to it.

Jesus didn’t try to guilt his followers into obedience. He told them about the rewards of doing God’s will. He told his disciples to spread the good news that if we follow His lead, we are “not under the law, but under grace” as the apostle Paul said in Romans 6:14. What that means is that, the grace of God is available to all people, “instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously, and godly lives, zealous for good works.” Titus 2:11-14

The truth is that a student, or any of us, will behave according to our values––what we believe is right or wrong/ honest or cheating. If we want to cheat, we will find a way, or we will follow our conscience.