Ethics & Behavior

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The Effects of Peer Influence, Honor Codes, and

Personality Traits on Cheating Behavior in a
University Setting

Alvin Malesky, Cathy Grist, Kendall Poovey & Nicole Dennis

To cite this article: Alvin Malesky, Cathy Grist, Kendall Poovey & Nicole Dennis (2022) The
Effects of Peer Influence, Honor Codes, and Personality Traits on Cheating Behavior in a
University Setting, Ethics & Behavior, 32:1, 12-21, DOI: 10.1080/10508422.2020.1869006

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ETHICS & BEHAVIOR
2022, VOL. 32, NO. 1, 12–21
https://doi.org/10.1080/10508422.2020.1869006

The Effects of Peer Influence, Honor Codes, and Personality Traits

on Cheating Behavior in a University Setting
Alvin Malesky , Cathy Grist , Kendall Poovey , and Nicole Dennis
Western Carolina University

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
Most university students have engaged in some form of academic dishonesty. Academic Integrity;
These actions can have detrimental consequences for the student, the university, Academic Dishonesty;
and society at large. It is important to understand factors that contribute to Cheating, Honor Code
academic dishonesty as well as to identify potential predictors of this behavior.
This study employed an experimental design with 361 undergraduate students
in a laboratory setting. Deception was used during the experiment to determine
the impact of peer influence, personality, and an honor code on cheating
behavior. Results revealed that peer influence had the largest impact on cheat­
ing behavior. In addition, personality, specifically, individuals who scored high on
the openness trait were significantly more likely to cheat than those who scored
lower on this trait. Implications of these findings for addressing academic
dishonesty in higher education are provided.

INTRODUCTION
Academic dishonesty is widespread in higher education. Research suggests that the majority of
students cheat at some point during their collegiate career (McCabe & Trevino, 1996; Teixeira &
Rocha, 2010) with rates of cheating being as high as almost 70% in some studies (McCabe &
International Center for Academic Integrity [ICAI], 2020). It should be noted that most of these
prevalence rates are based on self-report. Given multiple factors (e.g., shame of admitting deviant
behavior, fear of getting caught, selective memory) these results may underestimate the true occur­
rence of cheating behavior.
Academic dishonesty is problematic for multiple reasons. First, students that cheat in their classes
may receive credentials from their institution for mastering skills or material that they did not truly
learn. This is especially concerning when mistakes or incompetence could lead to life-threatening
consequences such as within the medical profession. Additionally, this unethical behavior, if not
stopped, can continue into the professional realm and erode confidence in institutions such as law and
law enforcement, education, business, and mental health care. Finally, academic dishonesty penalizes
students who are doing their own work. This is particularly true when course grades are distributed
based on a curve. In these cases, students could arguably be “penalized” for doing their own work if
their classmates are receiving an unfair advantage by engaging in academic dishonesty. Of course,
there can be negative consequences for the students caught cheating as well (e.g., failing an assign­
ment, failing a course, expulsion from the university).
Given the negative consequences of this behavior, it is important to understand why students cheat.
What factors, whether internal or external, play a significant role in influencing the occurrence of
cheating behavior? Motivation is perhaps one of the most salient internal factors that can contribute to
this behavior. A motivational conceptual framework proposed by Murdock and Anderman (2006) is

CONTACT Alvin Malesky [email protected] Department of Psychology Room 302, Killian Bldg. Western Carolina University
Cullowhee, North Carolina 28723.
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
 FACTORS RELATED TO ACADEMIC DISHONESTY 13

helpful in understanding academic dishonesty. This framework consists of three factors (i.e., goals,
expectations, and costs). Specifically, when students “contemplate” cheating they may consider the
purpose for completing the assignment (e.g., extrinsic goals, performance orientation), whether they
can successfully complete the task in question (e.g., self-efficacy, outcome expectations), and the
associated costs of cheating on the assignment (e.g., likelihood of being detected, penalties if caught)
(Murdock & Anderman, 2006). In addition to these factors, social norms are likely to play an
influencing role in engaging in cheating behavior. This is especially true when students observe
their peer cheat (Daumiller & Janke, 2020).
A recently published meta-analysis tested aspects of the Murdock and Anderson framework (Krou
et al., 2020). Krou and colleagues examined the relationship between variables proposed in the
Murdock and Anderman model and cheating behavior in 79 studies. They found that academic
dishonesty was negatively associated with classroom mastery goal structure, individual mastery
approach goals, intrinsic motivation, self-efficacy, utility value, and internal locus of control (Krou
et al., 2020). This is important to consider because although these factors are internal in nature, they
are also somewhat malleable. However, a far more stable internal factor that is also worthy of
investigation is personality.
Personality may impact cheating behavior by having an influence on an individual’s beliefs about
themselves and others, their approach to learning and studying, and the way they view attainment of
goals (Lee et al., 2020). The Five Factor Model (FFM) of personality has been used in many studies to
assess personality traits and their relationship to engaging in academic dishonesty. Several of the traits
in the FFM model have been found to have a relationship with cheating behavior (Giluk &
Postlethwaite, 2015; Lee et al., 2020). For example, conscientiousness has been found to have
a strong inverse relationship with engaging in cheating behavior. Individuals who rate high in
conscientiousness tend to persist and have success with tasks, which often leads to better grades and
higher self-efficacy, rendering cheating a strategy that is not useful to the student (Giluk &
Postlethwaite, 2015; Lee et al., 2020). Giluk and Postlethwaite (2015) also found that agreeableness
was inversely related to academic dishonesty, while Lee et al. (2020) found a very small inverse
relationship between agreeableness and academic dishonesty. Researchers found that extraversion,
neuroticism, and openness had a small to nonexistent relationship with academic dishonesty (Giluk &
Postlethwaite, 2015; Lee et al., 2020).
External factors on the other hand, such as academic culture and peer influence, can also impact the
decisions and behaviors of students. Specifically, when students believe that their peers condone
cheating or engage in academic misconduct, they are also more likely to cheat (O’Rourke et al.,
2010; Rettinger & Kramer, 2009). Studies with non-US samples also found similar results regarding
peer-influence on cheating behavior (Jurdi et al., 2011).
Honor codes may contribute to a culture of academic integrity; however, this is not always the case.
For example, colleges and universities can have an honor code, but students and faculty may simply
view the code as a “paper tiger.” In this case the honor code has yet to become part of the university
culture and may have limited impact on cheating behavior. Regardless, it is possible that simply
reminding students of the honor code could impact immediate cheating behavior. From
a motivational perspective, the mere presence of an honor code may remind students of the costs
associated with academic dishonesty both from a potential punishment standpoint as well as by
increasing cognitive dissonance (Murdock & Anderman, 2006). This in turn would lower the like­
lihood that the student engages in this behavior. However, honor codes, when truly effective for the
long-term, are part of a university culture that is unaccepting of academic dishonesty. Perhaps
McCabe et al. (2012) summarize it best when they stated the following,

Among the major conclusions from this research are that honor codes are effective in promoting integrity and
reducing cheating and that effective honor codes (those that promote integrity and reduce cheating) are more than
mere “window dressing.” They affect faculty attitudes and behavior and can have an enduring effect . . .. (p. 102)
14 MALESKY ET AL.

Culture, especially in recent literature, has emerged as an external factor of interest in predicting both
undergraduate and graduate cheating behaviors. Cultural norms shape students’ beliefs about accep­
table academic behaviors (Gentina et al., 2017; Jian et al., 2019; Tsui & Ngo, 2016). For example,
Chinese graduate students report having a difficult time acculturating to the less collectivist mind-set of
students reporting academic dishonesty found in more individualistic cultures like the United States
(Jian et al, 2018). Social integration has also been shown to be the mechanism by which peer
involvement influences cheating behavior; however, this varies based on cultural background
(Gentina et al, 2017). Findings from previous literature also support the notion that positive and
supportive academic culture (e.g., belief in deep learning, fairness in grading, etc.) could act as
a protective factor in preventing students from engaging in academically dishonest behavior
(Barbaranelli et al., 2018; Cronan et al., 2015). The impact of culture may suggest that peer perceptions,
or at least social pressure, could be more influential than the mere presence of an academic honor code.

The current study

Given the uniqueness and complexity of human behavior it is likely that both internal and external
factors influence cheating behavior. The goal of this study was to investigate the influence of external
and internal factors on engagement in academic dishonesty in a laboratory setting. Unlike other
research studies investigating this issue that rely solely on self-report, this study utilized an experi­
mental design, deception, and incentives for participants to cheat to replicate a standard learning
environment. In addition, data collection sessions consisted of multiple students to reflect a classroom
setting. After all, most university exams are administered in a group/classroom format. Our goal was
to increase the ecological validity of the study. It is possible that organic interactions could arise
between participants in the study much as they would in a classroom setting to influence one’s
behavior. At the very least, the mere presence of other students is more reflective of an authentic
classroom environment and thus increases the generalizability of the findings.
Although other studies in the field rely on data collection methods beyond self-report measures,
many studies rely solely on self-report to determine the occurrence of academic dishonesty. Self-report
data collection has many benefits; however, as stated above, there are inherent limitations with using
this type of data collection procedure (e.g., shame of admitting deviant behavior, fear of getting caught,
selective memory). These factors likely result in the underreporting of cheating behavior. This study
eliminates these possibilities by using an objective and covert measure to determine the occurrence of
academic dishonesty and thus results in a more accurate appraisal of this behavior.
In addition to examining the impact of peer influence and honor codes on cheating behavior, the
current study addresses the following hypotheses. First, we hypothesized that conscientiousness and
agreeableness would be significantly associated with cheating behavior. Related to this hypothesis, our
first research question was to ascertain if relationships existed between the other three personality
traits (extraversion, neuroticism, and openness) and cheating behavior. Review of the literature
suggests that conscientiousness and agreeableness are related to cheating, in that participants who
rated high in conscientiousness and agreeableness were less likely to engage in cheating behavior
(Giluk & Postlethwaite, 2015; Lee et al., 2020). Researchers have found mixed results with the
following Five Factor personality traits: extraversion, neuroticism, and openness. Therefore, we
explored relationships between these traits and cheating behavior in the current study to provide
additional clarity in the literature.
We also hypothesized that honor code condition (soft condition and stringent condition), and
confederate condition (Encouraging Cheating) would be predictors of cheating. Previous research
supports the presence of an honor code in reducing academic dishonesty among students (Engler
et al., 2008; McCabe & Trevino, 1997; McCabe et al., 2002) and the impact of peer influence on
academic dishonesty (McCabe & Trevino, 1993).
 FACTORS RELATED TO ACADEMIC DISHONESTY 15

METHOD
Procedure
Participants were informed that they could earn a Starbucks gift card by participating in the study. They
were asked to wait in a common room with two confederates who posed as participants before being
brought into a classroom with seven desks. Up to five participants and two confederates participated in the
research sessions. To control for potential grouping effects, random assignment was utilized to determine
which condition of the study each group would receive. In addition, participants signed up for the study
through a system which allowed them to choose the date and time, which fit within their schedule. The
groups were conducted with the same procedures with regards to what the coordinator of the session said
and what the confederates said. A script was developed which was used by coordinators and confederates.
After the researcher assistant (RA) obtained informed consent from each participant, participants were
asked to complete the personality measures on a laptop. In the “stringent” honor code condition, the
participants had to acknowledge that they would abide by the university honor code, in which RA’s called
direct attention to the academic integrity policy and students had to acknowledge that they had read the
policy before completing the next steps in the study. In the “soft” condition, the honor code was presented to
the participants; however, they did not have to acknowledge abiding by the statement and could simply click
“next” to progress to the next screen on the computer. In the last honor code condition, participants were
not exposed to the honor code.
Upon completing of the honor code and personality portion of the study, participants were told to turn
over a clipboard that was placed on their desk and answer as many questions on the logic test as they could in
five minutes. Participants were told that they would receive 1 USD on a Starbucks gift card for every
question they answered correctly with a maximum of 10 USD if they answered every question correct. They
were then given five minutes to complete the logic test. After five minutes, the RA collected the logic tests
and was then interrupted by an urgent request (e.g., a phone call). The RA instructed the participants to
complete the demographic questions on their laptop and quickly excused herself from the room. Outside the
room, the RA photographed participants’ logic tests. Returning to the room, the RA appeared flustered and
informed the participants that she had to attend to an important issue. Citing that she did not want to keep
the participants waiting, the researcher returned each logic test with an answer key and asked that the
participants grade their own test before the RA hurriedly left the room for approximately five minutes.
While the RA was out of the room, the two confederates either remained silent, engaged in a dialog
to encourage cheating, or engaged in a dialog to discourage cheating. In the encouraging cheating
condition one confederate asked the other if they thought the researcher would know if they changed
their answers. The second confederate replied that they were going to change their answers to get more
money on the gift card, and then the first confederate agreed to follow suit. In the discouraging
cheating condition, the second confederate replied that they would be worried about getting caught
cheating, to which the first confederate reported that they would not change their answers. The
participants in the room could hear the confederates’ conversation in both of these conditions. The
confederates were silent in the third confederate condition.
At the end of the study, the RA returned and collected all logic tests. To determine whether
participants cheated on the test, the photos that the RA took of the participants’ logic test were
compared to the logic test the participants turned in after tests were graded.

Participants
Participants were recruited from introductory psychology classes at a midsize public university in the
southeastern United States. A total of 361 undergraduates participated in the study. The average age
was 19.14 with a range of 18–51 and standard deviation of 2.76. Most of the participants were
freshman (73.0%). Sophomores (16.8%), juniors (6.3%), and seniors (3.4%) made up the rest of the
sample. With regards to sex, 47.1% identified as male and 49.0% identified as female. Most of the
sample (78.1%) identified as White, 9.7% identified as African American, 6.6% identified as
16 MALESKY ET AL.

Table 1. Percentage of participants who cheated by AI condition and confederate

condition.
Confederate Condition
Discourage Silent Encourage
No Honor Code 18.70 (32) 20.00(30) 34.20(76)
Soft Honor Code 5.70(35) 9.50(42) 9.52(21)
Stringent Honor Code 3.03(33) 9.09(44) 22.91(48)
Percentage of participants in each condition who cheated (total number of participants in
each condition).

multiracial, 2.8% identified as other, 2.3% identified as Asian, .6% identified as Native Hawaiian or
Pacific Islander, and 2.8% chose not to provide information regarding their ethnicity.

Measures
Demographic questionnaire
Demographic information was collected regarding participant’s age, gender, ethnicity, and year in school.

Logic test
A logic test was created for this study. It contained ten logic questions including word unscrambles, verbal
reasoning questions, and word problems. Participants were allocated 5 minutes to complete the test.
Regarding the results of the current study, the mean number correct was 3.85, with a standard deviation
of 2.03. The logic test was used to determine whether a participant cheated or not.

M5-120 personality measure

The M5-120 was used to assess the domains of the Five Factor Model of personality. The M5-120
consists of 120 items, which were developed from Goldberg’s (1999) International Personality Item
Pool. The items on the M5-120 are divided into 24 questions for each of the five domains. Participants
respond to a five-point Likert-type scale to indicate how accurately statements apply to their person­
ality, with 1 being very inaccurate, to 5 being very accurate (McCord, 2010). The M5-120 has strong
reliability, which is noted in several samples with alpha values ranging from .83 to .90 for the five
domains (Johnson, 2014). The following Cronbach’s alphas were in the strong range for the current
sample (.86 for the extraversion scale, .83 for the agreeableness scale, .84 for the conscientiousness
scale, .88 for the neuroticism scale, and .80 for the openness scale).

Academic integrity statement

The university’s academic integrity policy statement (i.e., Honor Code) was provided to select
participants. This statement defined and emphasized the severity of violations of the academic
integrity policy (see Appendix A).

RESULTS
Crosstabulations were conducted to determine the percentage of participants who cheated in each condition
of the study. Given that there were slightly different numbers of participants in each condition, the
percentage of participants who cheated in each condition are reported below. As can be seen in Table 1,
the highest number of participants who cheated (34.2%) was in the condition where no honor code was
presented, and the confederates encouraged cheating during their discussion. The lowest number of
participants who cheated (3.03%) was in the Stringent Honor Code condition when the confederates
discouraged cheating in their conversation. The Silent condition included confederates who were present
but did not speak. Cheating was neither encouraged nor discouraged in this condition. In the Confederate
condition, more cheating occurred in the Encourage condition and the least amount of cheating was in the
 FACTORS RELATED TO ACADEMIC DISHONESTY 17

Table 2. Means, standard deviations, and correlations for all variables.

M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
1. Extraversion 3.18 0.56 -
2. Aggreableness 3.75 0.47 −0.038 -
3. Concientiousness 3.50 0.51 .206** .320** -
4. Neuroticism 2.93 0.60 −.344** −0.008 −0.406** -
5. Openness 3.29 0.49 0.069 .306** −0.102 .115* -
6. Confederate Condition 2.08 0.84 −0.104 −0.024 −0.04 .154** −0.102 -
7. Honor Cde Condition 1.96 0.85 −0.054 −0.009 −0.143 −0.094 −0.014 −0.161 -
8. Cheated (yes/no) 0.17 0.37 −0.011 −0.017 0.019 −0.017 −0.146 .178** −172 -
M and SD are used to represent mean and standard deviation, respectively. Pearson correlation were conducted on all continous
variables (Extraversion, Aggreableness, Concientiousness, Neuroticism, Openness). Spearman’s Rho Correlations were conducted
categorical and dichotomous variables (Confederate Condition, Honor Cde Condition, Cheated yes/no). ** Correlation is significant
at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). *Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed)

Table 3. Summary of logistic regression analysis for variables predicting cheating or not cheating.
95% C.I.for Odds Ratio
Predictors B S.E. Wald df Sig. Odds Ratio Lower Upper
No Honor Code 11.768 2 0.003
Soft Honor Code −1.245 0.439 8.036 1 0.005 0.288 0.122 0.681
Hard Honor Code −0.958 0.355 7.273 1 0.007 0.384 0.191 0.770
Encourage 9.079 2 0.011
Silent −0.700 0.369 3.600 1 0.058 0.497 0.241 1.023
Discourage −1.141 0.411 7.693 1 0.006 0.319 0.143 0.715
Extraversion 0.008 0.291 0.001 1 0.979 1.008 0.570 1.783
Agreeableness 0.213 0.371 0.330 1 0.566 1.238 0.598 2.562
Conscientiousness −0.214 0.354 0.367 1 0.545 0.807 0.404 1.614
Neuroticism −0.269 0.295 0.830 1 0.362 0.764 0.429 1.362
Openness −0.925 0.348 7.070 1 0.008 0.397 0.201 0.784
Constant 3.145 2.248 1.957 1 0.162 23.218
a
Variable(s) entered on step 1: Honor Code Group, Confederate, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism,
Openness.

Discourage condition. Correlations were conducted to determine the relationship between variables.
Pearson correlations were conducted with continuous variables and Spearman’s Rho correlations were
conducted with categorical variables. Means, standard deviations, and correlations are provided in Table 2.
A binomial logistic regression analysis was conducted to investigate the predictors of cheating.
Logistic regression was selected due to five independent continuous variables (extraversion, agreeable­
ness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness), two categorical variables (Honor Code condition
and Confederate condition), and a binary dependent variable (cheating or no cheating). It was
determined that the dependent variable should be binary (cheat/no cheat) since there was not enough
variance in the variable given that a majority of participants who cheated only cheated on one question.
The authors wanted to determine the simultaneous effects of the five continuous variables and the two
categorical variables. Results indicated that the overall model was statistically significant, X2 (9, N= 361) =
36.96, p< .001. Results revealed 16.2% (Nagelkerke R2) of the variance in cheating can be explained by the
model, while correctly classifying participants in either the cheating or no cheating group was 83.3%.
The logistic regression coefficient, Wald test, and odds ratio were significant for the Honor Code
condition, the Confederate condition, and openness (see Table 3). Inverting the odds ratio for the
Honor Code condition reveals that participants in the No Honor Code condition were 3.4 times more
likely to cheat than those participants in the Soft Honor Code condition, and 2.9 times more likely to
cheat than those in the Stringent Honor Code condition. The Honor Code condition contributed to
the model. Again, inverting the odds ratio for the Confederate condition also contributed to the
model. Participants in the Encourage condition were 3.2 times more likely to cheat than those than in
the Discourage condition. The Silent condition did not significantly contribute to the model.
18 MALESKY ET AL.

With regards to the personality traits, the only personality trait that was significant for contributing
to the model was openness. When inverting the odds ratio for openness, participants who rated higher
in openness, were 2.5 times less likely to cheat than those who scored lower in openness. The other
personality traits, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism did not contribute
significantly to the model.

DISCUSSION
Results from this study are consistent with the literature on academic dishonesty and peer influence.
Notably peer influence, in this case, dialogue between two confederates, had a significant impact on the
other students in the room regarding whether they cheated on the exercise. In the case where the
confederates endorsed cheating behavior, there was a significantly higher likelihood that other participants
would cheat than in the silent condition or the condition that discouraged cheating. In addition to peer
influence, reminding the participants of the university’s honor code also impacted their behavior.
Participants who were not exposed to the honor code were more likely to cheat across all conditions than
were the participants who had some level (soft or stringent) of exposure to the code.
Interestingly, there was an unexpected result in the condition where the confederates endorsed cheating
behavior in the soft honor code condition. Specifically, encouraging cheating increased the likelihood of
a participant cheating in the hard and absent honor code condition but decreased the likelihood of cheating
in the soft honor code condition. We speculate that this may have been due to increased suspicion about the
true purpose of the study in the soft honor code and encouraging cheating condition. In other words, we
suspect that participants’ suspicion may have increased when they saw an honor code in the middle of the
study and then minutes later they were presented with an opportunity to cheat and two students were
encouraging it. We speculate that such suspicion was absent in the hard honor code condition where the
confederates encouraged cheating because the researcher called direct attention to the honor code and
normalized it as being part a routine part of university research studies.
Regardless of the unexpected results in the condition above, it appears that simply presenting participants
with an honor code prior to completing an assignment may increase the participant’s cognitive dissonance
to the point that it decreases the likelihood that he or she will cheat. Of course, faculty members and
administrators hope to go beyond a short-term increase in cognitive dissonance and ideally create
a pervasive culture where academic dishonesty is frowned upon by the student body. This can be done
on two fronts. First faculty and staff can address educational and cultural concerns from a pedagogical
standpoint. In fact, Anderman and Koenka (2017) suggest that university instructors emphasize mastery,
clearly communicate expectations, do not focus on grades, do not publicize grades, and address cheating
directly in class as a way of creating a culture that discourages academic dishonesty. Ideally, these classroom
level interventions will lower motivation to cheat and results in a culture less conducive to cheating.
The second front deals directly with students. Indeed, students more so than faculty, staff, or administrators
influence their peers’ academic behavior. Previous studies found that cheating increased when the social
norm suggested that cheating was acceptable (Daumiller & Janke, 2020). The results of the current study are
in line with Daumiller and Janke (2020) findings and suggest that students have tremendous influence over
their peers’ behavior. If universities are able to get student “buy-in” and develop an academic culture where
students do not accept cheating, then the rates of academic dishonesty are likely to decrease. This is
especially true if students, faculty, and administrators all work in concert to address this issue.
One can glean from these results that faculty and administrators need to focus their attention on creating
a culture that discourages cheating as much as they do on acquiring and implementing technological
resources to catch cheating students. In fact, we suggest that administrators pursue a two-prong approach in
dealing with academic dishonesty. The first prong is building a culture on campus that does not tolerate
cheating. Ideally, this should be a student lead initiative that receives broad based support from faculty and
administrators. The second prong is focused on technology designed to catch cheaters (e.g., Turnitin,
Safeassign). Using both strategies together will address cheating on the micro level and the macro level. It
 FACTORS RELATED TO ACADEMIC DISHONESTY 19

will minimize broad cheating by creating a culture where this behavior is discouraged and at the same time
detect, at least some of those, who have not been dissuaded from their behaviors by peer influence.
The results of this study also indicated that the personality trait openness significantly contributed to the
model of predicting academic integrity. Participants who obtained higher scores on this trait were less likely
to engage in academic dishonesty. Individuals who score high on this trait, often seek out experience and
typically are more reflective about the ideas that are encountered (McCrae & Costa, 1997). In other studies,
there have been mixed results with regards to the trait, openness (Aslam & Nazir, 2011; Gallagher, 2002;
Nguyen & Birerman, 2013; Giluk & Postlethwaite, 2015). Some researchers found mild positive correlations
between the personality trait, openness and academic integrity (Gallagher, 2002). While other researchers
found negative correlations between openness and academic dishonesty (Aslam & Nazir, 2011; Nguyen and
Biderman, 2013). It may be that individuals who rate higher in the personality trait openness are less likely to
engage in academic dishonesty because they tend to be reflective and less motivated to cheat. These
individuals also have more intellectual curiosity, which may also lead to less motivation to cheat. This
personality characteristic may also be related to Murdock and Anderman (2006) view of performance goals
related to academic dishonesty. In fact, Krou et al. (2020) found that intrinsic motivation (i.e., learning for
the sake of learning) was negatively correlated with cheating. Thus, this personality trait may influence one’s
desire to actually learn the material and thus decrease his or her motivation to cheat.
Results of this study indicated that the personality traits agreeableness and conscientiousness did
not significantly contribute to the model of predicting academic dishonesty, while other studies have
found significant results between agreeableness, conscientiousness, and academic dishonesty (Giluk &
Postlethwaite, 2015; Lee et al., 2020). Most studies have found a significant negative relationship
between conscientiousness and academic dishonesty (Bratton & Strittmatter, 2013; Lee et al., 2020;
Williams et al., 2010). Students who rate high in conscientiousness were more likely to plan and
achieve goals with regards to academic work (Giluk & Postlethwaite, 2015; Lee et al., 2020) and to be
more thoughtful about ethical judgments in their academic work (Bratton & Strittmatter, 2013).
It is not clear why openness was the only personality trait that predicted violations of academic integrity
in the current study. The authors did not find that agreeableness and conscientiousness were predictors of
academic integrity. However, other researchers have found that the personality traits Honesty-Humility
(HH) did relate to dishonesty and participants who rated higher in HH were less likely to engage in
dishonesty (Heck et al., 2018). Paulhus and Williams (2002) found that the Narcissism, Machiavellianism,
and psychopathy (The Dark Triad) were related to several FFM traits. More specifically, agreeableness was
negatively significantly related to all three of the components of the Dark Triad and narcissism and
psychopathy were significantly related to extraversion and openness. Lower scores in conscientiousness
were significantly, negatively related to Machiavellianism and psychopathy, while lower levels of neuroti­
cism were significantly, negatively related to psychopathy The results of the current study add to the
literature by examining the relationship between personality and cheating in a behavioral experiment rather
than relying solely on self-report. However, findings continue to be mixed.

Conclusion
Based on the results of this study, it is important for faculty and administrators to be aware of the impact of
peer influence and integration of an honor code on student cheating behavior. Our results point toward the
importance of peer influence, whether it be from peers who encourage cheating or peers who discourage
cheating, as well as, the presence of an honor code on cheating behavior. These findings suggest that faculty
and administrators should integrate an honor code into courses and course assignments. In addition, faculty
and administrators can take steps to reduce the motivation of students to cheat in class (see Anderman &
Koenka, 2017) and create a student driven culture that is unaccepting of academic dishonesty on campus.
We also found the personality trait openness was a predictor of whether or not a participant
cheated. However, our results in this regard need to be interpreted with caution given that our findings
are in contrast to the results of other research studies (Bratton & Strittmatter, 2013; Giluk &
20 MALESKY ET AL.

Postlethwaite, 2015; Williams et al., 2010). Thus, continued research is needed in this area to fully
understand personality’s role in academic dishonesty.

Limitations
The study is not without limitations. First, it is hard to determine the extent to which the devised scenario
using gift cards replicates the incentives that tempt students to cheat in academic settings. For example, it is
likely that there are students who would cheat to pass a class but not to earn money on a gift card. Second, the
demographics of the research assistants and confederates lacked diversity. Almost all the graduate and
undergraduate students that acted as research assistants and confederates were female and Caucasian.
Although this was beneficial from a consistency standpoint it may limit generalizability of the results to real
world conditions. Third, due to the large number of participants who identified themselves as freshman, it
may not be possible to generalize the results to all classes (sophomore, junior, senior) in a university setting.
Additionally, there were challenges to maintaining the deception of the study’s intent. For example, the
removal of the logic tests to take pictures of participants’ original answers and the rushed nature of the
dissemination of the logic tests for participants to grade may have been transparent to some participants.
A suspicion check at the end of the study asking participants what they thought the purpose of the study was
may have helped to identify participants who were highly suspicious of the true nature of the study.
Additionally, including a suspicion check would have allowed us to test our speculation that higher
suspicion in the soft honor code condition where the confederates encouraged cheating accounted for the
decreased likelihood of cheating behavior.
Further experimental research is needed to continue teasing apart the complexities of internal and
external factors affecting cheating in higher level education. Such research might examine differences in
cheating behavior when different incentives are present (e.g., gift cards versus academic credit for class).
Additionally, since experimental studies like this one are hinged upon deception, we suggest inclusion of
a measure of suspicion or participant’s knowledge of the true purpose of the study in future investigations.
Finally, a primary goal of this study was to establish a high degree of ecological validity when examining
conditions under which students cheat. Consequently, incentives to cheat were included in this study to
more closely resemble “real world” conditions. A control group, with no incentives to cheat, was thus not
included. In retrospect, a control group would have been beneficial in distinguishing main effects of
personality, peer norms and honor code from their interaction with the context (high versus low perfor­
mance motivation). Future research in this area should therefore include a control group where participants
are not offered any manipulated incentive to cheat for comparison purposes.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
We have no conflicts of interests to disclose.

ORCID
Alvin Malesky http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2025-0659
Cathy Grist http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7329-2460
Kendall Poovey http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9779-5158
Nicole Dennis http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7202-7104

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