In Theory: Is cheating becoming more socially acceptable?
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From high school students to millionaire athletes, cheating has always been around. But 2012 saw a string of high-profile cases that brought cheating into the public eye and could even be making it more socially acceptable.
Lance Armstrong’s doping scandal, exam cheating at the Air Force Academy, Goldman Sachs cooking its books and Gen. Petraeus’ affair are examples of “higher levels of cheating in different spheres” says Tom Gabor, a consultant in criminology and criminal justice in West Palm Beach, Fla., which he says has a snowball effect in that it “legitimizes further dishonest behavior.”
As we see people around us cheat and get away with it, it’s easier for us to become dishonest ourselves, says Dan Ariely, a professor of behavioral economics at Duke University in Durham, N.C. “Very few people can be vastly dishonest, but most people can be slightly dishonest and at the same time think of themselves as good people.” He gives the example of adding a few things to an expense report as something such a person would do.
Author Lisa Shu believes that people can adjust their own moral compasses to fit unethical behavior. For example, a series of psychological tests found that people forgot their own moral rules after they cheat.
Q: Do you think cheating is becoming more socially acceptable?
When Chap Clark wrote a book about the teenagers in our area, I was particularly struck by his sociological observations on cheating. In “Hurt,” he describes the high-stress life of an adolescent, in which multiple adults are applying multiple high standards of excellence on a daily basis, without offering the coping skills necessary for prioritization, workable scheduling, competition and dealing with disappointment. In this kind of environment, cheating becomes an available coping skill, as adolescents band together to survive a hostile adult world. When I read this 2002 study, I wondered what would happen to the future workplace when it became populated with folks for whom Survival Cheating is normalized behavior.
Maybe we were already there, with the esteemed elders of Goldman Sachs leading the way. Lance Armstrong’s cheating for personal glory is one thing; cheating people out of their pensions, savings and homes is quite another. Honest people trying to stay in their homes have found themselves up against a whole corporate ethos of robo-signing, double-dealing, hidden clauses and “lost” paperwork. It makes you think that our Survival Cheaters are the only ones who are actually prepared for the real world.
How do we help each other survive and thrive without cheating? We know that God intends for us to be truthful. The prophets warn about what will happen when betrayal and destruction are the norm, and what could be if truth is the order of the day. The Gospel of John speaks of truth 24 times, because truth is an essential ingredient to soul peace and world peace. So we resist the pull of Survival Cheater Gravity and instead hang on tightly to the high road. We invest our own lives with honesty, and continue to demand it of our corporations and government. Our young people take their cues from us. Let’s help them out.
The Rev. Paige Eaves
Crescenta Valley United Methodist Church
Montrose
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It certainly seems as though cheating has become more socially acceptable today, and I cannot deny that we have become aware of a large number of examples during the past year. Such revelations sadden me and cause me to worry about the future of our society. I believe that if we do not combat the root cause of this debilitating breakdown, we will continue to see negative consequences. But what is the cause of this erosion of our social capital?
My belief is that a major fault lies in the loss of a sense of community and a feeling of compassion for our neighbors. We have become isolated from each other in a multitude of ways, with numerous acquaintances but few real friends. It is easy for me to see that such isolation and lack of trust could lead to the belief that our actions have no real consequences. Why not cheat, if we have no sense of our actions affecting real people? In such a case, cheating becomes separated from morality because ethics require a belief that others will be harmed by our actions.
I am convinced that religious congregations can help to mend the torn fabric of our society. We can become places where people are welcomed and connected to each other in meaningful ways, where they find love and compassion for themselves and each other. Until we believe that we are connected to each other and that what we do affects us all, we will continue to sabotage the health of our society and each other. As people of faith, I hope that we can build a beloved community and heal the world before it gets any worse.
Rev. Dr. Betty Stapleford
Unitarian Universalist Church of the Verdugo Hills
La Crescenta
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Modern life is rife with tawdry behavior, but let’s look at our history for some perspective. Our forebears came to possess this land, displacing the original inhabitants who had no concept of owning land. That level of cheating seems hard to top.
I don’t claim to understand the science of it, but I have read that “doping” can be vastly more sophisticated and completely undetectable. This would make the entire concept of athletic superiority meaningless.
If that day does come, perhaps more of us will do our own biking, running, kicking, batting, etc., for entertainment. We are cheating ourselves by sitting on our duffs and obsessing about sport stars.
Goldman Sachs is one example from the financial sector whose criminal conniving came within a whisker of destroying our economy, part of the rapacious greed that continues to steal from the many to enrich the few. They did wrong, but we have only our passive and easily distracted selves to blame that they have gone unpunished.
Social (and legal) acceptability is not a spontaneous force beyond our control. It is up to us.
Roberta Medford
Atheist
Montrose
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The proliferation of cheating that we saw last year was deeply disappointing. I think we have good reason to believe that for many people, dishonesty has indeed become more acceptable. How we respond to this problem is critical to the future of our society.
Of course, Lance Armstrong isn’t the first professional athlete in recent years to fall into disgrace. Major League Baseball stars including Melky Cabrera and Mark McGwire are among many found to have used performance-enhancing drugs. New Orleans Saints players were paid bounties for injuring opponents.
A similar list could be compiled for political leaders, and most unfortunately, a few religious figures. Diminishing integrity isn’t unique to America. A survey last year by the University of Essex in the U.K. tracked a similar decline among Britons, finding the populace was more tolerant of adultery, drunk driving and lying than they had been a decade earlier. It’s noteworthy that younger respondents were the least worried about bad behavior.
My personal belief is that our society is providing less moral guidance, whether from religion or other sources, to reinforce the distinctions between right and wrong. I realize that none of us is perfect. But there is tragedy in the fact that fractured moral foundations typically lead to fractured lives.
In the seventh chapter of Matthew, Jesus taught the parable of the foolish man who built his house upon sand. Lacking a firm foundation, his home was washed away by wind and rain. We must realize — and find a way to teach our children — that if we choose to deceive and cut corners, we are in reality cheating ourselves. When we do this we, like the foolish builder, may find ourselves poorly prepared for the storms of life that inevitably will turn our way.
Michael White
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
La Crescenta
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Gee, I hope not. It has always been with us, and currently there certainly seems to be more than usual. But I like to think that maybe the current plethora of cases is only an aberration.
The fact that there seems to be so much cheating going on reminds me of the fabled Nov. 16, 1940, college football game between Cornell and Dartmouth. Cornell won the game in a highly charged atmosphere with a last-minute score. However, Cornell had accidentally been awarded an extra down (in football, you get four chances or “downs” to advance 10 yards. If you make those 10 yards or more, you get another set of chances or “downs.” If you don’t make the 10 yards in four downs, the other team takes possession of the ball).
Cornell scored on a fifth down that it wasn’t authorized to have. Had it not been given that extra down, Cornell would not have scored and the other team would have won. Soon after the excitement died down, Cornell realized it should not have been given that extra down and voluntarily forfeited the game to its opponent. That’s character and, as Michael Josephson says, “Character Counts!”
Can you imagine either the 49ers or the Ravens forfeiting the Super Bowl because an official made a bad call? I can’t. Can you imagine any of the college or high school teams you may root for doing what Cornell did if such a situation arose? I can’t, either. Maybe we aren’t as honorable as we once were. But each of us can still try to do the right thing. As Michael Josephson says, having character means being willing to pay more than is comfortable for us to pay. I’ll end on a cliche: Virtue, like sleep, is its own reward.
The Rev. Skip Lindeman
La Cañada Congregational Church
La Cañada Flintridge
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I do think there is a general sense of acceptable cheating in America. People admit to fudging on their taxes, or ripping off “The Man,” as if these are things for which we’re all supposed to nod approvingly. Do I think it will become socially dominant? I dunno. There have always been segments of society that have come together to create a cheating atmosphere — who travel into communities, cheat people out of their hard-earned money, then make their exit while applauding one another’s ability to gain wealth at other people’s expense. Yet I also believe that people are born with a God-given conscience, and so I imagine that there will always be those who will object to cheating and stealing and whatever other sinful behavior of the day our society winkingly permits.
Perhaps society expects too much from students and athletes, and our expectations push them to go beyond what is humanly possible. We recognize that much of what is published as examples of beauty doesn’t reflect reality, but people still seek plastic surgeons to achieve the necessary image of social acceptance. Perhaps genius and herculean feats of greatness should better be understood as exceptions rather than rules.
We still must have a standard. There must be that which we expect in this society, and that which we find unacceptable. As our society moves away from a belief in the biblical God, it may move toward a more barbarian attitude with regard to cheating, since there would be no higher command, only a communal expectation that many mavericks of the community flout. And that could be perceived as an eventual good. So, our churches
will keep teaching honesty as the best policy, and we’ll start praying now that our social acceptability doesn’t disappear completely.
The Rev. Bryan Griem
Montrose Community Church
Montrose
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It is becoming painfully evident that dishonesty does not carry the same social stigma that it did a mere two decades ago. There are many reasons for this, including dishonest behavior at the highest levels of government, business, competitive sports, and even religion. All of these factors ultimately contribute to the degradation of a society’s moral and ethical bearings.
However, I believe that the greatest single cause for cheating and unethical behavior is the glaring lack of moral and ethical education in our public schools. We teach our children math, social studies, English, science and a host of secondary subjects such as music and the arts. But we fail miserably when it comes to inculcating our youth with a powerful impetus to do the right thing regardless of the consequences.
When this reality is combined with the major scandals that appear in the news with increasing frequency, we have a recipe for disaster. These much-publicized incidents of low behavior in high places can make a life-long impression on the young and impressionable minds of our children — especially when they lack their own strong moral compass.
I think that we as a nation must make it a priority to find a way to incorporate some basic teachings about morality, right and wrong, and ethical behavior into our public school curriculum. All of this can be done without infringing on the fundamental separation of church and state. There only needs to be a will do so.
Rabbi Simcha Backman
Chabad Jewish Center
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I don’t believe cheating is becoming more socially acceptable. If it was, the prominent examples cited wouldn’t be as scandalous as they are. Maybe one of the reasons cheating doesn’t become acceptable is that it adversely affects others in tangible ways. It takes unfair advantage, it seeks unearned gain, it betrays trust that’s given, and it endangers innocent bystanders. Regardless of our religious or moral beliefs, nobody likes getting hurt. Cheating violates God’s fundamental command to love others, and God is never mocked. Whenever a “bad seed” is sown, harmful results follow.
The temptation to cheat, however, is as old as the human race, and some people will always try to get away with it. During the conquest of Canaan an Israelite man named Achan cheated and took plunder from the city of Jericho for himself that he should have left alone. Even though his cheating was undiscovered for a time, God would not bless the nation with victory in battle because of the compromise. Through a divinely directed process of elimination, Achan was singled out as the guilty man and, only after he paid (with his life!), could the nation move forward with God’s blessing. The old adage that “cheaters never prosper” is true, in the long run, for individuals and even for entire nations.
Pastor Jon Barta
Valley Baptist Church
Burbank
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While the proliferation of cheating scandals can definitely desensitize us to the behavior, it does not spare us from the damage we do to ourselves if we cheat.
In grade school, I had the same teacher for grades four to six. I struggled academically, but she always encouraged and believed in me. Fearing my father’s anger, I changed a low grade to a B+ on one report card. Since I had to take the signed card back to my teacher, I changed the B+ back to the original grade, but tore the card. Although my parents did not find out, I knew my cheating betrayed that teacher’s trust, and I carried the scar of that behavior for years.
Because we’re created in God’s image, he has imprinted our hearts with a sense of morality whether we believe in him or not, and we never fully escape that moral awareness. We can rationalize cheating, but every time we compromise ourselves, we wall off a piece of ourselves. We’re left feeling a little more empty, hollow and isolated, even if no one discovers our behavior.
Studies indicate that behaviors like cheating induce physiological stress that leads to an increase in inflammatory responses and suppression of the immune system. Carried long term, these stressors can result in significant health problems. Psychologically, people who cheat are more depressed, more suspicious of others and tend to have lower self-esteem.
Cheating is more common, but is it really more socially acceptable? I wonder. I don’t hear anyone congratulating Lance Armstrong for his brilliance in cheating his way to seven Tour de France championships. People are more likely to smirk than smile when they hear the name of Gen. Petraeus or Tiger Woods. It seems to me that society remembers the missteps of violators for a long time.
Pastor Ché Ahn
HRock Church
Pasadena
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Cheating does seem to be very prevalent in society today. My attitude toward sales pitches from anyone is that the opposite of what the salesperson says is more likely true. We often doubt the motives, intentions and honesty of everyone around us. While cheating has always been with us, what has changed today is that more people think they can benefit from cheating. Past societies were rigidly structured so the rich and powerful benefited most from cheating. With the public embrace of upward mobility, everyone sees the importance of winning at any cost.
Because we see the advantages and benefits that people and companies receive from lying and cheating, it is likely that a cheating culture will continue. Companies that are caught in lies are rich and powerful; celebrities who lie and cheat have fame and fortune. Some successful politicians seem to build their careers on misleading voters. As long as there is little apparent downside to lying and cheating, people will have little incentive to take the harder paths of honestly and strict standards of honor.
We all need to model in our lives and teachings the values and profit of practicing truth and openness. Since we make our society by our actions, example and leadership, cheating can be reduced if we demonstrate a better way.
Steven Gibson
South Pasadena Atheist Meetup