The Economics of Cheating

One of the biggest problems faced today in classrooms from elementary schools through colleges is cheating. Whether on a minor in-class assignment or a final exam, cheating is prevalent in almost all different scenarios. As a result of cheating, many professors have implemented test-taking policies designed to help reduce such activity: forcing students to sit far apart, creating multiple test versions test to complicate copying from others, or just monitoring students closely as they complete their tests, making note of anything out of the ordinary or suspicious. More interesting than strategies to prevent cheating or catch students who cheat, however, are attempts to explain the reasoning behind cheating -- why some students choose to cheat and others don’t. Overall, the reasoning behind cheating comes down to three major things: cost and benefits, impact on a student’s self-image, and negative externalities that cheating causes for the entire class.


The most basic factor in a students decision whether or not to cheat comes down to the simple analysis of the costs and the benefits of cheating. If a student comes well-prepared to an exam, believes that he can score a high mark on the exam, and is not worried about the results, then he will have very little incentive to cheat. Even if he can score a few more points by his looking at his notes or copying the work of another student who may know the material better, this small benefit is outweighed by if he is caught and receives a zero on the exam. On the other hand, if a student comes ill-prepared to an exam, does not know the material very well, and believes that cheating can improve his score from a failing grade to an A, he may then feel that this benefit is worth the risk.


A second major driver of the decision whether or not to cheat – and one which in effect counteracts the cost-benefit approach outlined above -- is the impact cheating will have on one’s self-image. If the cost-benefit approach was the ultimate answer on cheating, then we would anticipate that as potential gains from cheating increase and the probability of getting caught decreases, students would likely cheat at an even higher rate. However, this has been demonstrated to be not the case for most students, specifically in a study conducted by behavioral economist Dan Ariely of University of Chicago who tested the amount of cheating under differing situations. Ariely found that because people want to feel good about themselves, they will tend only to cheat in small amounts. Even if incentives rise and risks fall, people will not increase their level of cheating. Ariely refers to this willingness to cheat a little and still feel good about yourself as an individual’s “personal fudge factor.” One psychology study showed that students are less likely to cheat when they are viewing themselves in a mirror, and this reinforces the idea that because they want to feel good about themselves and not guilty, despite the circumstances they will only cheat in small amounts. Williams College, a small liberal arts college in Massachusetts has implemented a policy of having students sign the Honor Code before taking any exam, large or small (this has been implemented now at several other schools). The professors then leave the room and let the students continue on with the exam without them present. While this creates a lower-risk cheating environment, having the students sign the code, thus reminding them of the immorality of cheating, actually should work in the opposite way and help to reduce cheating. This is because of the idea that people want to feel good about themselves, and thus another cost of the cheating becomes the negative image of yourself that will be created if you do decide to cheat.


The final factor that plays into the decision to cheat is the negative externalities that are created through a student’s cheating. At classes at Williams and in other college level courses, the class average on an exam determines the curve for the class on that exam. However, if one or multiple people cheat, then it hurts the entire class as a whole, by raising this class average. A student through cheating can raise his or her grade from as low as a D or F up to an A, and this could act to raise the class average by a fairly large amount. The more students that decide to cheat, more the average will raise. And as a result of the raised class average, the curve for the entire class will be lowered. If a student beforehand recognizes this negative externality that their behavior will cause, then they will be less inclined to cheat, as cheating will hurt all of their classmates and once again make them feel guilty. In conclusion, cheating is a large problem faced in classes and schools around the world. The decision of students to cheat really seems to boil down to three things, the costs and benefits of cheating, the amount that the cheating will affect their own view of themselves, and the negative externalities that cheating will impose on their fellow students. Hopefully through weighing all these things students will come to realize that there is much more to lose than to gain and it is not worth it to cheat

and welcome to DU! :hi:

tried to do my best to make it easier to read

it makes it easier to follow the text. You'll likely get more reads and comments. :)

But, welcome to DU.

I also think most cheaters are unlikely to care about the impact on the class.

Though I do think that the kids that cheat on tests are the same ones that often get perfect scores- it all depends on how well they've prepared, studied, etc. That being said I think that if they knew that their cheating can hurt the class, they'd be less likely to partake in it because they are not always at the bottom.

I matriculated with a 3.97 GPA from university but I really enjoyed my subjects, and my major, so the hard work required wasn't as much of a burden as it might have been to some.

The only time I seriously contemplated cheating was in the face of a Paleontology final; I probably would fall among your second category in that I didn't want to receive a good grade that way (self-esteem), and there were moral isssues in my thinking as well.

It turned out for the best; the resource who claimed to have the answers to the exam turned out to be wrong; I went in with the knowledge I had from studying and received a high mark.

everything using a kind of Gary Beck approach to all social problems, but when costs and benefits cannot be adequately quantified because they represent qualities that are amorphous, the best you can do is try to use proxy variables which by their nature are imperfect representations of that which you are trying to measure. It is for that reason that I am always skeptical of so-called cost/benefit analysis.

...and why would those willing to cheat to help themselves, then be concerned about the class as a whole? Seems like exactly what is going on in society today. Those who cheat and game the system get the rewards and to hell with the country as a whole. (also sounds like the republican political strategy)

I've watched 5 students in an undergrad class recently get nailed for cheating. There's an honor code they write out and sign on *every* assignment. Those who cooperated with the honor board tended to get Fs and no suspensions. Others are suspended for a semester or two, in addition to the F in the course.

In one school I attended as an undergrad we had an honor policy. It *required* that the prof and proctors be out of the classroom during the test. They'd hand out the tests and leave. On the other hand, the policy was that if anybody was caught cheating he'd fail and might be suspended or expelled--and *everybody* who could reasonably be expected to have seen the cheating and failed to report it would get the same punishment. A couple of kids cheated in my physics class. They had over half a dozen people turn them in. Three people failed the class and didn't come back next term: the two cheaters and the person who sat between them.

In the high school class I watched the students cheated shamelessly. They felt good about themselves. They just didn't see how it mattered--they needed the grade to graduate, they didn't need the information, they didn't respect the system. In fact, in many cases it was "cool" to cheat.

Saw one girl write crib notes on her hand while the teacher was handing out tests. 0. No retest.

Others would wait for somebody to pass their homework forward and then copy it before passing both homeworks forward or handing them in. (The teacher stopped that by waiting until all those scrambling to get their homework out and passed forward had passed it forward. Then he said all the homework had to be in his hand by the time he counted to three. He counted to 3 slowly. Half the class failed to get their homeworks in--1/4 were copying, and 1/4 had their homework held up by the cheaters. Some handed the homework to him, he took it, wrote "late, 0" on it and handed it back. The ruckus that this policy created was amusing. The teacher's response? "Look, you saw that your work was being copied. If you wanted to, you could have taken it and handed it directly to me. You didn't. You let them copy your work. That makes you an accomplice. Next time, don't let them copy. If you can't stop them, tell me to stop them. Or just hand it to me when I come around."

The next week he did the same thing with another homework. Same frickin' outcome. The homework was due right before a test. "Okay, all tests are to be in my hand by the time I count to 3." In every section at least a couple of kids got 0s because of students trying to copy. Most kids were stunned. One of the would-be cheaters whined and was told, "You didn't listen to me last time, did you?" The cheaters just didn't care that they hurt others; they sometimes found it funny, in fact. Mostly when the wronged student was of a different race or sex.