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Why Winners Become Cheaters (washingtonpost.com)
JoeyRox writes: A new study from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem reveals a paradoxical aspect of human behavior — people who win in competitive situations are more likely to cheat in the future. In one experiment, 86 students were split up into pairs and competed in a game where cheating was impossible. The students were then rearranged into new pairs to play a second game where cheating was possible. The result? Students who won the first game were much more likely to cheat at the second game. Additional experiments indicated that cheating was also more likely if students simply recalled a memory of winning in the past. The experiments further demonstrated that subsequent cheating was more likely in situations where the outcome of previous competitions was determined by merit rather than luck.
That makes sense to me. If you win something based on merit it becomes part of your identity. "I'm a fast runner" or "I'm good at math." That will put you under pressure (internal and external) to make sure it happens.
If you get really good at something, or have a lot of success, you are proud of yourself and define yourself for it. When faced with losing, you're much more motivated to cheat to win because it's more important to you than it would be if you had lost and presumed that it's not your thing, hence not caring nearly as much about it.
"Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
Winning is a natural high, right? People steal to get high. Why not cheat?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Like a whole bunch of psychological studies, it only applies to college students who incur no costs.
From what I read Bernie Madoff had a compulsion for consistency. When he played golf (and he was pretty good) he would apparently turn in an 80 every time. So I suspect that the vagaries of the market just went against his grain. This then begs the question. Did he run a Ponzi scheme because he was a crook, or did he pretty much have the wrong compulsion for the wrong industry.
I am pretty sure that I see this in other areas. For instance I was at an industrial company some years ago where an IT guy cut himself on the inside of a computer to the point where it may or may not have needed stitches. The company people freaked out. They were hinting that they would even bribe him not to report it. This got my curiosity going thinking that this injury would cause their worker's compensation rates to go up, or that it would spawn some kind of outsized investigation, but then a secratary said something like, "No, Dougie is obsessed with the fact that it has been 400 days accident free." I asked if that were true and she said it wasn't and that now for any minor injury he would hand out a week's vacation to not report it. So there was a huge sign that said 400 days accident free and everyone knew it was a lie except for Dougie's superiors.
So like most things in life I suspect that most people lie somewhere on a spectrum ranging from, "I couldn't give a shit about cheating, to, look at me the most consistent winner in the universe."
So while Madoff might have been scared that a bad report would result in fewer sales and higher redemptions, it was probably a situation where he would feel that he had somehow personally failed if he were to have to say that this year was 11% instead of 12%.
Remember: "Priming studies" (like here: being reminded of prior winning makes you more like to cheat) are notorious for showing anything under the sun and then failing to be reproducible later.
Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman called priming studies the "poster child for doubts about the integrity of psychological research":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priming_%28psychology%29#Criticism
In the Many Labs Replication Project, the two "priming studies" landed at the very bottom, showing no evidence of any real effect in the replication trials:
https://osf.io/wx7ck/
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
Perhaps it's just a matter of intelligence. The first game was won by the smart players. In the second game the smart ones saw the cheating opportunity and took it (perhaps even correctly deducig that that was the point of the experiment).
The stupid players saw no opportunity and no point.
So the experiment is interesting but the conclusions could be all wrong,..
It makes sense that they would cheat to enable them to continue to do so, even if their first win was on the up and up. Public expectations is a horrible force, and the price of them losing is much worse than the price of cheating.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
I believe the study controlled for losers by letting the subjects imagine winning in the past. ;)
for corruption and crime happening in the "more successful" layers in a population.
Since it's a trait, hard to come by, isn't it?
Even if you are within of breadth of taking the ultimate prize, the reward for coming in second in any winner takes all system is nothing.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
I can say that I've noticed this desire in myself, although never acted on it... But in games where I know I have a skill advantage, and have won before, the temptation to cheat, as a short cut measure, becomes strong. The mentality is one of "well, I know I'm capable of getting to that point, so is it really cheating if I just skip to that part?" Yes, yes it is. And I have to remind myself of that each. freaking. time.
I thought It was just me, but it turns out to be human nature I guess?
Winning is a natural high, right? People steal to get high. Why not cheat?
Not only that, but humans are natural cheaters. Think how much time has to go into teaching children to play fair.
Reporting bias occurs when the opposite result isn't ever reported. So you either see an article or you don't. If you see the article, that's because the result was "surprising". If you don't see the article, that's because it wasn't "interesting".
Trouble is, every possible result, no matter how "surprising", can occur just by chance if you do enough experiments, even if the truth isn't "interesting". Statistics works like that.
So if you keep doing all sorts of different experiments until you find one that randomly happens to look "surprising", then publish it, but never talk about all the other experimental ideas that didn't pan out, you've got yourself a case of reporting bias.
Ask yourself this: what legitimate scientific question is being answered here, and what journal and media outlets are likely to publish the opposite finding?
How do I reeeeeeeach these kiiiiiiiiiiiiids?
Wanna buy a shirt?
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My guess is they cheated in the first part in a creative, unexpected way. Won. Then continued to cheat I the second part in expected ways.
They should have made also an experiment changing the order. That is, play the game where palyers can cheat, first, and the game where they can't cheat, second.
Maybe the results would be "The ones who cheat in the first game also win in the second game where cheating is impossible".
My theory is that skillful persons find ways to win playing by the rules, where cheating is just rules with certain risk–benefit ratio. They will find out all the rules, legal and cheating, and the best way to use both.
That's my theory, but I need the experiment above to verify it ;-)
Seriously, why is this story posted without a link?
The brain uses a complex risk/reward/loss model to figure out whether to cheat. When reaping the benefits of a previous victory, those rewards now go in the model in the loss column as well as the rewards column. Because of people's tendency to loss aversion the model gets skewed towards cheating more so than for people that only have the benefits in the rewards category of the model
So some students with nothing to lose and no real life consequences decided to cheat in a study?
Maybe the first batch were clever enough to win that particular game and as they have already won (nothing) got bored and chose an alternative while those that lost still pursued a valid way to win?
It may be worth noting that people eventually graduate or leave college (or are expelled) and grow up eg. mature. Maybe less mature individuals are more likely to more??
I too conduct a test. In the first phase I gave slashdot readers a grade study to dissect. Those who dissected the study in the first phase were more likely to make toilet paper out of it in the second stage. Headline: this study shows that slashdot readers are more likely to steal and vandalise because they cannot afford toilet paper.
My conclusion? this just proves that low grade studies are first read and in the second stage transformed to being useful in the form of toilet paper. Maybe that means I'm a winner?!
A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
"Why Winners Become Cheaters" - well, because losers say so? Because losers hate the thought some can actually get ahead based on merit, knowledge and/or perseverence? Ehh.
Cheating cmes from several sources: one can't perform any other way (it happens, some barriers have a certain height for a reason); one thinks it's the easiest way (but has several drawbacks and risks that most cheaters don't always realize); one is so much afraid of failure that sees cheating the only certain way to succeed (which if of course bull, but it's a legitimate vause of cheating).
But trying to prove that winners will eventually turn into cheaters, because they're winners, well, that's just so sad it's beyond pityful.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
This is the most succinct explanation of NCCA revenue sports I've seen.
For those that don't follow them, they are collegiate money-printing machines where cheaters do prosper (the big names never change much for this reason), the punishments are tepid, and you only pay the workers with the monopoly money of a 'degree' in... something (the -ahem- minority of those that actually graduate, that is).
Great, another small sample size college student behavior result. I would take this, and any other such study, with a large grain of dead sea salt.
"Mit der Dummheit kaempfen Goetter selbst vergebens." - Schiller
I play mainly in God mode. People call it cheating. I am not cheating I am winning.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
This does not exist in nature.
Survival of the fittest and all.
Say an animal mutates a gene that gives it 2x the strength that is normally present in it's species. Thus it wins all combats against rivals for mating rights and spreads it's genes (and eventually it's strength becomes the baseline in the species). Nature does not turn around and say "hey wait no fair, you cheated...." and bans it from reproducing.
How about this example: Say a stone age humanoid stumbles across 2 devices; 1 is some sort of super accurate energy weapon and the other is a force field device both with an infinite energy supply. The person who discovers it and learns to use it goes on to become the leader of a powerful empire who eventually conquers all neighboring tribes. Revered as a deity, he goes on to reproduce with so many females that his genes become part of the baseline for that species. Does nature say "hey no wait, that was not fair to the others, you are disqualified from competing!" ?
That is not how the real world works. I think our brains are hardwired to use any perceived advantage to win in any competitive situation. So much so it overrides logic and discipline even to the detriment of the group as a whole.So to me these results are not that much of a surprise. Winnners, alpha's or whatever you want to call them tend to do whatever it takes to win, morals and ethics be damned. Might explain why so many rich and powerful people display sociopathic/psychopathic tendencies. This is also part of the reason I believe our species is doomed in the long run. Our inability to override our hardwired tendencies to want to rise to the top/alpha position.
Interesting.
Some of us eschew most forms of competition ... I don't care if you can run faster or jump higher ... I don't want to play your silly game if it's about that.
Someone who wants to show he's better at something is kind of a boor. I really don't care if you can hit a golf ball further, but if you shoot lower than I do and have fun, I don't need to care.
I wonder if this is why things like Eurogames are popular ... it's not competitive and cut-throat, it's co-operative. There is no incentive to cheat, because it's not that kind of game. Why would you cheat when you're all trying to win together?
Contrast this with Monopoly where the object of the game is ... well, to piss off everybody else and claim victory and rub their noses in it. I despise Monopoly.
Winning seems like it comes from competition for scarce resources. But in situations in which everyone needs to work together, it can be counter productive ... yes, you're awesome, but we all need to achieve a goal instead of stroking your ego.
So, if you derive your sense of self worth from "I beat you", "I'm better than you", a lot more of your self worth is dependent on those outcomes ... and you'll take greater lengths to ensure those outcomes.
Sure, in some contexts competition is good, and achieves some outcomes. But then you can get a skewed perspective on what you'll be willing to do to achieve those outcomes.
Interesting. Usually until someone actually studies this stuff you don't stop to think about it.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
How about a link? There's no indication of the methodology, conclusions, etc. If the title is the conclusion, how did they determine that these individuals were not already cheaters? Is it because people who are more competitive tend to cheat more?
Thanks for the click bait /.
Just another day in Paradise
Competitive cycling, cross country skiing and biathlon are exceptions. Cheating is required to be competitive.
I recall one Olympic where the results in cross country skiing were overturned after the samples were retested using new tests to find 'undetectable' steroids. The gold medal went to the guy who crossed the finish line almost last. The Silver went to last place. They didn't give a bronze. All the earlier finishers (and some later ones) having been disqualified.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Once you realize that the arbitrary rules imposed on many compettive endeavors are placed there by people with certain skills in order to make sure people with those skills succeed (that is, to keep themselves on top), "cheating" becomes only natural.
Furthermore, if you look around and discover that everyone who is winning is cheating, you might consider that the rules aren't meant to be followed; rather, they are intended to weed out the chumps who follow the rules (as well as those who lack the skill to avoid being caught).
It may simply be that different people are differently motivated to win. For example, if someone were offered $1 million if they win, but their opponent were offered only $1, I'd expect the one with the higher stake to both be more likely to win by skill or effort, and be more likely to cheat to win. This should be even more so if the more motivated person has been allowed more time to practice -- like perhaps a lifetime of really liking to win. Other people might only play for fun (teammates in highly competitive games hate such people) -- trying new/different strategies, spending less time thinking on their turn. Or worse, some people might have been playing merely because they got paid to do it for the study.
Similarly, reminding someone that they are a winner would serve as some motivation to win again.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
No, sadly you got cheated. At intelligence.
I couldn't resist, forgive me for replying to a troll.
It seems to correlate with what I see in everyday life, especially at work.
Some people, especially higher management, seem to win more than others, even games they are not particularly skilled at. I think it is that they simply really want to win instead of just having fun, or, in the case of work, find an interesting job with a good work-life balance.
Cheating is very characteristic of this behavior. For non-winners, it spoils the fun and the negative of the risk of getting caught isn't enough to offset the benefit of winning. Increase the perceived benefit or winning and cheating becomes a more attractive option.
the tests listed in the article wouldn't show a propensity for cheating by those who win, what it showed was that in a game where no one could cheat there was no cheaters, and in a game where one side of two groups "could cheat", some of those people cheated.
if anything the researched shows some people cheat when given the chance.
duh?