3-105 - Developmental and Cognitive Perspectives on Academic Dishonesty

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Academic dishonesty constitutes a major challenge for teachers, parents, and policy makers. Past research has suggested that most students engage in academic misconduct during their time in school even though it is considered wrong by most people. The tensions arising from this conflict between people's behavior and their normative principles conceptions raise fundamental questions for developmental psychology. What makes children, adolescents, and young adults engage in academic dishonesty? Do they view forms of academic dishonesty as generally wrong yet acceptable in some situations? If so, why do they view academic dishonesty as sometimes acceptable? The proposed symposium includes research on thoughts and behaviors relating to academic dishonesty during early childhood, adolescence, and college age. Across different age groups and contexts, the presentations will highlight the roles of cognitive processes in the development of academic misconduct.

The first paper will discuss the effect of reputation on young children’s cheating behavior, presenting evidence that telling 3- and 5-year old children that they have a reputation for being smart increases the tendency to cheat. The second paper will present a cross-cultural study investigating relations between high schoolers’ reasoning about and their engagement in academic misconduct. The third paper will present a study investigating the effects of academic context and stimulus ambiguity on college students’ reasoning and judgments about plagiarism. The discussant with draw on his expertise in education and moral development to highlight contrasting perspectives on academic dishonesty, and relate the presented research to central issues in children’s social and moral development.

Sub Unit

• Education, Schooling

Chair

• Audun Dahl, University of California, Santa Cruz

Discussant

• Larry Nucci, University of California, Berkeley

Individual Presentations

• Telling Young Children They Have a Reputation for Being Smart Promotes Cheating - Presenting Author: Li Zhao, Hangzhou Normal University; Gail D Heyman, University of California, San Diego; Lulu Chen, Hangzhou Normal University; Kang Lee, University of Toronto

• Secondary Students’ Domain Judgments of and Engagement in Academic Dishonesty - Presenting Author: Jason M. Stephens, University of Auckland

• When and Why is it Wrong to Copy from Others? Variability in Undergraduate Students’ Evaluations of Plagiarism - Presenting Author: Talia L. Waltzer, University of California, Santa Cruz; Kavitha Hari, University of California, Santa Cruz; Elina Berman, University of California, Santa Cruz; Giovanni Gonzalez, University of California, Santa Cruz; Audun Dahl, University of California, Santa Cruz