Study Reveals People Cheat For Others Belonging To Same Social Group

Cheating appears to be done by people for others with the same social group. A new study conducted by researchers from China and Canada reveals that some people tend to cheat for others within their similar grouping with no personal gain.

The cheating can happen all the time, regardless if it is thought to be harmless or it is deliberate deceit. According co-author and professor in organizational behavior at the Ted Rogers School of Business Management Fei Song, people are prone to lying due to different reasons, yet not only for themselves. Based on the study, people sometimes cheat to help others with whom they are related at the expense of a third party who is more socially withdrawn from the cheater.

The theory on cheating and social groups was investigated further by the team of researchers through conducting a series of tests. 900 participants from two universities in China were asked to join various situations of a simple money-allocation task. The participants were separated into two groups - recipients and allocators. The allocators were told to separate 50 yuan between two students - one from the other school who would be the "outsider", and one from the same school known to be part of the similar social group, according to University of Guelph.

When selecting freely, over 70 per cent gave the student from their own school more money, but they were just partly generous with the money. Almost two thirds of the group gave the student with the similar school 30 yuan with the remaining money going to the student from other school. For the allocators, it was found that 60 percent of the students had a tendency to cheat and pick options that favors the recipient from the similar school. The amount allocated was 28 yuan.

The study about cheating, the In-Group Favoritism and Moral Decision-Making was published in the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization and was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Daily Mail reported.