What market culture teaches students about ethical behavior

Abstract

Several recent studies indicate that cheating has become both more prevalent and more socially acceptable. In this article I draw parallels between market values and student attitudes about cheating. They include: (1) reduction of a broad range of goods to their economic value, (2) use of non-reciprocity as a guiding principle, (3) valuing the appearance of virtue over real virtue, and (4) reframing dishonesty in a positive light. I posit two ways that market culture influences the willingness to cheat, and discuss the media's role in transmitting this influence. The article concludes with the suggestion that attempts to curtail cheating by further policing students may only exacerbate the problem in the long run. The same contextual factors that help mitigate undesirable market behavior, when cultivated in the classroom, can help to curb student cheating.

Keywords:

• Academic dishonesty
• Cheating
• Market theory
• Externalities
• Media

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank colleagues at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign for their help in the development of this paper. Professor Ralph Page was very generous with his time, engaging me in numerous discussions; he gave me encouragement and feedback on ‘Social Capital and Neighborhood Effects’, a 2002 essay that factored heavily into this publication. I would also like to thank Professor Walter Feinberg and Professor Nicholas Burbules for their invaluable insights and suggestions that have helped shape this paper.

Notes

Notes

1.  Behavior that constitutes academic dishonesty includes obtaining test questions in advance, getting test answers from another person or source, using a crib sheet or notes on an electronic device for test-taking, having another person do one's homework or write a paper, plagiarism, downloading text or a whole paper off a website.

2.  Callahan (2004), p. 204. Statistics are taken from the following publications: ‘A portrait of a generation: 25 years of teen behavior and attitudes’, Who's Who Among American High School Students, 29th Annual Survey of High Achievers, and ‘Cheating and succeeding: record numbers of top high school students take ethical shortcuts’.

3.  Interview material cited in this paper is taken from McCabe (1999), pp. 681–687; McCabe (2003); and ‘Caught cheating’. Student anecdotal comments do not prove claims of increased academic dishonesty; however, they do shed light on student attitudes and motivations, and help to illustrate some of the points I make in this article.

4.  CEO salaries have risen from $795,000 (highest salary) in 1968 to $575.6 million in 1998 while entry-level wages fell 14% between 1979 and 2001. Today almost 30 million workers (close to 25% of all working Americans) make less than $19,000 per year (2002/2003). Cf. Callahan (2004), pp. 45–46 and 65.

5.  Donald McCabe of Rutgers University reports that undergraduate business students are 6% more likely to cheat than the average undergraduate student (McCabe, n.d.).

6.  James Edwin Kee, ‘Externalities’, in Magill (1997), p. 532.

7.  An externality may be considered such even if unassignable to one party if the practice resulting in the externality is so prevalent as to result in policies or laws that generally impact the entire industry's future practices.

8.  Judaism: ‘What is hurtful to yourself do not to your fellow man’ (Talmud); Taoism: ‘Regard your neighbor's gain as your own gain; and regard your neighbor's loss as your own loss’ (T’ai Shank Kan Ying P’ien); Confucianism: ‘Is there one single word that one can practice throughout one's life? It is perhaps ‘like-hearted considerateness. What you do not wish for yourself, do not impose on others’ (Analects 15:24); Christianity: ‘Do to others as you would have them do to you’ (Luke 6:31); Buddhism: ‘Hurt not others with that which pains yourself’ (Udanavarga 5:18); Zoroastrianism: ‘That nature only is good when it shall not do unto another whatever is not good for its own self’ (Dadistan-I-dinik 94:5).

9.  There are valuable alternatives to the practice of competition over a zero-sum game. Many examples exist of cooperative actions that expand goods available to the individual. Some of these goods are only available through cooperative action. For example, the Amish can build the same barn in one day that would take the individual months to construct. Conservation of natural resources requires the personal sacrifice of many people for the accomplishment of a greater good. And progress on issues of racial and gender justice could never have been made without the concerted effort of a large group of people.

10.  For example, Ray C. Anderson, CEO and Founder of Interface, Inc. has been widely hailed as the ‘greenest’ CEO in America. His multi-billion-dollar business is an exemplar of environmental responsibility, and actively works toward recycling, pollution controls, development of sustainable energy sources for manufacturing, planting trees, and even inventing a carpet made from recycled corn cobs (<http://myhero.com/myhero/hero.asp?hero=r_anderson>)

11.  For example, The American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery now suggests using ‘Botox injections, or filler injections to fight those wrinkles’ in one's 30s! (<http://www.facial-plastic-surgery.org/patient/fps_today/vol17_2/vol17_2pg2.html>).

12.  These figures are taken from the US Census Bureau, C-25, and appear in Lopez (2006).

13.  These two issues are significantly related; the greed and materialism of some have increased poverty and economic injustice for others. In this poll almost two-thirds of the respondents (64%) chose these issues as most important. Zogby International poll results were published online on 11/12/2004 (<http://www.zogby.com/soundbites/ReadClips.dbm?ID=10389>).

14.  The US Senator accused of voting for seaweed control was the late Paul Wellstone of Minnesota (Franken, 2003, p. 179). There have always been ‘dirty’ politics, but they have not always been brought into the home so vividly on such a daily basis.

15.  The notion of the media as the ‘handmaiden’ of corporate America is obsolete. The media is corporate America. Consider this:

Fewer than ten colossal vertically integrated media conglomerates now dominate U.S. media. The five largest firms—with annual sales in the $10-25 billion range—are News Corporation, Time Warner, Disney, Viacom, and TLC. These firms are major producers of entertainment and media software and have distribution networks like television networks, cable channels, and retail stores. Time Warner, for example, owns music recording studios, film and television production studios, several cable television channels, cable broadcasting systems, amusement parks, the WB television network, book publishing houses, magazine publishing interests, retail stores, motion picture theaters, and much else. NBC is owned by General Electric, Disney owns ABC, and Westinghouse owns CBS. (McChesney 1997, pp. 18–19)

16.  I would like to thank Bryan Warnick, colleague and Assistant Professor at Ohio State University, for sharing his views with me on the paradox of further academic policing.

17.  Regarding the use of fear as a tool to shape behavior, John Dewey (1934) wrote, ‘Fear never gave stable perspective in the life of anyone. It is dispersive and withdrawing’ (p. 25).

18.  McCabe (n.d.) concludes that ‘student perceptions of how faculty and other students feel and behave with regard to academic integrity … appears to be the most significant factor in influencing the level of academic dishonesty’ and consequently, developing ‘strong positive cultures of academic integrity’ is an important part of the solution (p. 10).