Scientists Discover Dishonest Deeds Create 'Cheater's High'

Do you cheat? There may be a reason why some who get away with cheating do it over and over again. Scientists have discovered that as long as no one gets hurt, people that get away with cheating experience a "cheater's high."

In previous research, scientists found that people who did something wrong specifically to harm someone else usually felt bad about their behavior afterward. Yet few studies had been conducted on what a person felt after doing something "bad" with no repercussions.

In order to find this out, the researchers created a series of experiments. In one of them, participants took tests on computers in two groups. In one group, when participants created an answer, they were automatically moved to the next question. In the other group, the participants could click a button on the screen to see the correct answer, but they were told to disregard the button and solve the problem on their own. About 68 percent of the participants cheated in that particular group.

It turns out that the participants who cheated were overall happier afterward than those who didn't and those who had no opportunity to cheat. This, in turn, seemed ot indicate that the cheaters experienced a type of "cheater's high" after the fact.

That's not the only experiment that the scientists conducted, either. In all, the researchers involved more than 1,000 people in both the U.S. and England during the course of several experiments. In all of them, the cheaters felt better after getting away with cheating.

"The good feeling some people get when they cheat may be one reason people are unethical even when the payoff is small," said Nicole E. Ruedy, one of the researchers, in a news release. "It's important that we understand how our moral behavior influences our emotions. Future research should examine whether this 'cheater's high' could motivate people to repeat the unethical behavior."

The findings reveal a little bit more about how people might or might not make unethical choices. This could have implications for business practices in addition to everyday life choices.

The findings are published in SSRN Electronic Journal.