When presented with the chance, people may resort to cheating to enhance their perceptions of intelligence or health. This behavior stems from a form of self-deception that allows them to attribute their improved performance to their inherent skills rather than their dishonest actions, according to fresh research.
If you trick me once, that’s on you. But if I trick myself, I might just end up feeling smarter, as indicated by a new study led by Sara Dommer, an assistant professor of marketing at Penn State.
Dommer investigated the reasons behind why individuals cheat in activities such as solving crossword puzzles, playing Wordle, or tracking calorie intake, especially when the only rewards are internal, like enhancing their self-esteem. Her research revealed that when cheating allows for an improved self-image, people tend to practice diagnostic self-deception. In this scenario, they rationalize their better performance by attributing it to their abilities rather than acknowledging the cheating. Her findings were published in the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research.
“I discovered that people cheat even when there aren’t external rewards, such as cash or prizes, but rather intrinsic ones like feeling good about themselves,” Dommer stated. “For this to be effective, it relies on diagnostic self-deception, meaning I have to convince myself that I’m not cheating. This process enables me to feel smarter, more accomplished, or healthier.”
Dommer undertook four studies to explore whether individuals would cheat when the rewards were purely intrinsic, as well as what motivates the sensation of achievement despite having cheated. In the first study, 288 undergraduate students were provided with meal information for three days – including a dish of three pancakes with butter – and tasked with logging the calorie content into a food tracking application. The participants were split into two groups, with one group receiving additional calorie information alongside the meal descriptions.
The app presented five calorie options for each food item. For example, three pancakes with butter had calorie counts ranging from 300 to 560 calories. The group without specific calorie figures could have averaged the five options to evaluate the actual caloric value of their meals, as explained by Dommer. Instead, those participants entered lower calorie totals than the group that received specific information, indicating a tendency to cheat for intrinsic rewards, such as a perception of better health.
The second study included 195 participants recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk. These participants were separated into two groups – a control group and a cheat group – and asked to partake in a 10-question multiple-choice IQ test. Those in the cheat group were informed that correct answers would be highlighted, assisting them in tracking their progress. After the test, members of the cheat group recorded the number of correct answers, while the control group estimated their scores. The program then graded both groups’ tests, and participants were asked to predict their scores on a follow-up IQ test that did not allow cheating.
Dommer’s findings showed that those in the cheat group reported higher scores than those in the control group and, based on their self-reports, overestimated their abilities on the follow-up IQ test. This suggested that cheat group participants engaged in diagnostic self-deception, believing their success stemmed from intelligence rather than cheating, though their performance on the follow-up test contradicted this belief.
The third study was similar to the second; however, this time, 195 participants were tasked with unscrambling letters to form words, such as finding “utmost” from “motuts.” Participants in the control group submitted their answers in a designated box, while those in the cheat group were shown the correct answer after three minutes and self-reported their scores. They then rated, on a scale of one to seven, how much they believed their intelligence and the difficulty of the task influenced their performance. They also used the same scale to answer how much they agreed that unscrambling words accurately measured intelligence.
Once again, Dommer found that cheat group participants reported unscrambling more words successfully than those in the control group. Compared to the control group, this group was likelier to attribute their accomplishments to their intelligence and viewed the task as a valid measure of intelligence.
“Participants in the cheat group fell into diagnostic self-deception, attributing their success to their own abilities,” Dommer noted. “The mindset was, ‘I’m excelling because I’m smart, not because the task enabled me to cheat.’
In the final study, 231 participants took a financial literacy test. They were divided into control and cheat groups, but this time, about half of each group read a statement highlighting that most American adults fail to pass a basic financial literacy test. Dommer believed that introducing this uncertainty regarding their financial knowledge might lead individuals to value accuracy over performance, thereby reducing cheating. After the test, participants rated themselves on a scale of one to seven regarding 15 traits related to financial literacy.
Dommer discovered that presenting the uncertainty statement decreased instances of cheating as individuals aimed for more accurate self-evaluations of their financial literacy.
“How can we prevent individuals from engaging in diagnostic self-deception and encourage a more accurate self-representation? One approach is to draw their attention to the inherent uncertainty about the skill itself. This appears to diminish the effect,” Dommer remarked.
Dommer explained that society often perceives “cheating” as a deliberate and calculated action. Her research indicates that sometimes, cheating occurs without conscious recognition.
“I don’t categorize cheating as strictly good or bad,” she expressed. “It’s intriguing to see that not all cheating has to be purposeful, overt, and intentional. However, these misleading self-perceptions can be detrimental, especially when assessing one’s financial or physical health. When someone engages in diagnostic self-deception, they may neglect utilizing products and services intended to assist them. Therefore, it’s vital to recognize misleading beliefs and aim for truthful self-assessments.”
