Why people cheat

[gooner]

Very good article on the dynamics of cheating and human behaviour to it. Some interesting studies referenced(one new one, links provided in article).

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/02/08/why-winners-become-cheaters/?

 

[Stingray34]

Very good article on the dynamics of cheating and human behaviour to it. Some interesting studies referenced(one new one, links provided in article).

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/02/08/why-winners-become-cheaters/?

Great article, great find - thanks. This goes far beyond sport and has relevance to the culture of the West; I may be an old lefty, because I just cringe every time some parasitic politician talks up the 'virtue' of competition as if it's impervious to corruption.

On the cycling side, it does describe the mindset of the Texan. Hamilton described how losing a bike race was 'illogical' to Lance....even if it was against a 10-year-old.

 

[sniper]

but the author has it totally upside-down when he suggests the cheating comes after the winning.
that's ignoring the tons of examples from top sport where it's the other way round.

for Lance, unlike what the author suggests, there's no evidence he won anything substantial prior to doping.
he may have, he may not have. we can only guess.
for tons of others it's pretty clear that the cheating came before the winning.

 

[Stingray34]

Re:

but the author has it totally upside-down when he suggests the cheating comes after the winning.
that's ignoring the tons of examples from top sport where it's the other way round.

for Lance, unlike what the author suggests, there's no evidence he won anything substantial prior to doping.
he may have, he may not have. we can only guess.
for tons of others it's pretty clear that the cheating came before the winning.

Actually, I think the author has got it right - the study involves inconsequential games: it's the intrinsic thrill of winning anything, on any scale, that motivates future cheating. It's similar to an addiction process.

Lance won lots of little things as a kid - running races, triathlons. Then he got into cycling and started winning domestically. It started small to become big, but the addiction to winning started the cheating.

Edit: I should add that Lance has the insecure psychology and personality type to cheat to win a fried chicken meal. Winning is winning to him, as it means beating someone else - the old zero-sum-game: it ain't real until it comes at someone else's expense.

 

[sniper]

Actually, I think the author has got it right - the study involves inconsequential games: it's the intrinsic thrill of winning anything, on any scale, that motivates future cheating. It's similar to an addiction process.

fair points.
admittedly i read the article only cursorily.

 

[coinneach]

Interesting, right enough.
But is competition really the invention of economists?
Ever watched kids play in kindergarten?
And that's when they know the are going to be fed.
To me, it explains more about politicians than sportsmen.

 

[Stingray34]

Interesting, right enough.
But is competition really the invention of economists?
Ever watched kids play in kindergarten?
And that's when they know the are going to be fed.
To me, it explains more about politicians than sportsmen.

This is a good question, along the lines of nature vs nurture. I can't answer it, but I can tell you kids in playgrounds are not babes in the woods: Young children are already steeped in socialization, from day one onwards.

 

[blackcat]

why.. but for the parakeets and the glory is why.

JV Edgar erythropoetin said, follow the money to the IRS and Al Capone.. but in this case

follow the parakeets to the Sino killing fields and their alive and dead aphrodisiacs

its all about the parakeets

 

[thehog]

I don't know why she cheated? I took care of her, bought her presents, rubbed her feet before bed... why? Why?!!??!!

 

[blackcat]

Re: Re:

but the author has it totally upside-down when he suggests the cheating comes after the winning.
that's ignoring the tons of examples from top sport where it's the other way round.

for Lance, unlike what the author suggests, there's no evidence he won anything substantial prior to doping.
he may have, he may not have. we can only guess.
for tons of others it's pretty clear that the cheating came before the winning.

Actually, I think the author has got it right - the study involves inconsequential games: it's the intrinsic thrill of winning anything, on any scale, that motivates future cheating. It's similar to an addiction process.

Lance won lots of little things as a kid - running races, triathlons. Then he got into cycling and started winning domestically. It started small to become big, but the addiction to winning started the cheating.

Edit: I should add that Lance has the insecure psychology and personality type to cheat to win a fried chicken meal. Winning is winning to him, as it means beating someone else - the old zero-sum-game: it ain't real until it comes at someone else's expense.

Lance started doping in triathlon.

for Lance winning means... it means not losing. and it means others lose. It is only winning when it is in relief of the losing. like you say, a zero sum. But on this case, the win means something else than a win. It means he has not lost, and someone else has lost.

Look at the Astana podium in the 2010 Tour when he is alongside Pistolero who has the Cup. How big does Lance feel there.

 

[blackcat]

Very good article on the dynamics of cheating and human behaviour to it. Some interesting studies referenced(one new one, links provided in article).

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/02/08/why-winners-become-cheaters/?

Great article, great find - thanks. This goes far beyond sport and has relevance to the culture of the West; I may be an old lefty, because I just cringe every time some parasitic politician talks up the 'virtue' of competition as if it's impervious to corruption.

On the cycling side, it does describe the mindset of the Texan. Hamilton described how losing a bike race was 'illogical' to Lance....even if it was against a 10-year-old.

creative destruction, note, the Koch brothers, they are big fans of Schumpeter, I always thought Shumpeter was spelled without a "c" because I thought I got it wrong in the first instance I was spelling Schumpeter... turns out, I was right in the original case.

#PoesLaw
#Kochbros
#TeaPArty

 

[Jacques de Molay]

I hope the author of that article wasn't paid for his work.

You've got to be kidding me with this. The references to cycling are laughable. Bribery in cycling?! Yeah, since forever. The delusion that Lance was the only person winning bike races demonstrates the shallow perception of the sport. Claiming that "the sports world was aghast" when Lance finally admitted to doping is also a gross oversimplification of the state of things.

I realize the article is not meant to be cycling-specific, but that ridiculous first paragraph sets the tone for a poorly thought out argument that follows.

There's little point in dragging Lance into this discussion though. As Landis has been quoted as saying, "With Lance, it wasn't about winning. It was about making the other guy lose." That's a different type of motivation, and that's where the article in the OP confuses itself.

You know where our competitive edge comes from?

 

[Jacques de Molay]

I had originally expanded more on my previous post, but once again my thoughts were lost to the ever-disruptive
502 BAD GATEWAY message that the tech team seems to not care one bit about rectifying.

(I'll try to quickly recapture what I had attempted to post, but I can't be bothered much beyond that.)


To the article posted in the OP:

There's no need for deep psychological analysis or overly-complicated social experiments. Just get out of bed in the morning and step out into the world. People like to "win," and their sense of entitlement comes long before their winning ways are set in motion. It's precisely what motivates them to achieve that "win" in the first place.

That's why people will do their best to get ahead of you in traffic. That's why the'll grab the cab or the parking spot you were waiting for. That's why they try to get more luggage onto a plane than is normally allowed. That's why they'll keep silent when the cashier hands them back more money than they knew they deserved.

It's a pervasive instinct the transcends most human differences, and spans all cultures, in all places, across history. The suggestion that we might have fewer cheaters if we were to only change the nature of our competitions is both embarrassingly childish and ignorant of our true nature. Winning against others is what we owe our very existence to.

 

[Merckx index]

There's no need for deep psychological analysis or overly-complicated social experiments. Just get out of bed in the morning and step out into the world. People like to "win," and their sense of entitlement comes long before their winning ways are set in motion. It's precisely what motivates them to achieve that "win" in the first place.

That's why people will do their best to get ahead of you in traffic. That's why the'll grab the cab or the parking spot you were waiting for. That's why they try to get more luggage onto a plane than is normally allowed. That's why they'll keep silent when the cashier hands them back more money than they knew they deserved.

It's a pervasive instinct the transcends most human differences, and spans all cultures, in all places, across history. The suggestion that we might have fewer cheaters if we were to only change the nature of our competitions is both embarrassingly childish and ignorant of our true nature. Winning against others is what we owe our very existence to.

So you think the researchers who did those studies cheated? They didn’t really find what they claimed to find? Because what they claimed to find is in fact that having won previously predisposes one to cheating more. Not cheating for the first time ever, no one is saying that most people never cheat. Just cheat more.

IOW, it’s a statistical effect. From the link:

"Dishonesty is a pretty complex phenomenon — there are all sorts of mechanisms behind it," said Schurr. "But people who win competitions feel more entitled, and that feeling of entitlement is what predicts dishonesty."

Notice they didn't claim that winning is the only process that contributes to a feeling of entitlement (being born rich generally does, too, e.g., not to mention being allowed to have everything you want when you're young). They just concluded that winning is one contributing factor, and that entitlement strongly contributes to cheating.

Nor do the researchers think competition could or should be eliminated:

Schurr, who calls competition "one of the greatest inventions of economists," doesn't believe it's inherently bad. But he does think it could use some reining in.

If you have a problem with this, you’re welcome to post a critique of the study, but nothing in your posts so far constitutes this. On the contrary, I think you're being simplistic in saying "people like to win". Just step into the world and you will see there is enormous variation in how much people want to win. Some people are obsessed with winning, will do anything to win. For many others, it really isn't that big a deal. They have other priorities. Likewise, if you think everyone behaves as described in your second paragraph, I don't think you've observed the world very carefully.

Everyone does want to survive, but that's not quite the same thing. It's been quite a long time since individuals in our species had to win in order to survive.

 

[Catwhoorg]

I watched a pre-K (my daughters) class playing musical chairs when I arrived to pick her up last night.

The final two for one chair clearly were "bending" the rules of going round the chair in one direction, and both were watching the teachers finger on the CD player to see when she made a move.

Whatever the motivation to cheat to win is, it can be seen very early.

 

[Benotti69]

Re:

why for the parakeets and the glory is why.

J Edgar eryhtropoetin said, follow the money to the IRS.
in this case

follow the parakeets to the Sino killing fields and their alive and dead aphrodisiacs

its all about the parakeets

Brilliant, absolutely brilliant! Cheers BC!

 

[blackcat]

this is a good link, it may solve this quandary
https://www.google.com.au/search?q=parakeets&espv=2&biw=1125&bih=931&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi5goGd4urKAhXMkpQKHSmGCRAQ_AUIBigB&gws_rd=cr&ei=Pum5VtrPIMe50gTynKqACw

 

[More Strides than Rides]

...

So you think the researchers who did those studies cheated? They didn’t really find what they claimed to find? Because what they claimed to find is in fact that having won previously predisposes one to cheating more. Not cheating for the first time ever, no one is saying that most people never cheat. Just cheat more.

...

There's a trend in social psychology of revealing irreplicable results. 3/4s of studies published in leading journals were not replicable, and many of those that were came with smaller effect sizes.

Also at play here is the gap between researcher, lab publicist, journalist and editor, where "topic for future studies" on the researcher's end turn into "findings" at the editors end.

This thread may not be the place for this discussion, but the likely fact that the study was done on young male college undergrads from one university limits the scope of the conclusions to be made. Also the fact that the field doesn't define cheating well. A study about cheating on tests will make conclusions about "cheating", when cheating on an exam is different from cheating on your spouse, cheating your friends in a video game, cheating your competition for a result, and cheating yourself for a delusion of success.

 

[Maxiton]

There's no need for deep psychological analysis or overly-complicated social experiments. Just get out of bed in the morning and step out into the world. People like to "win," and their sense of entitlement comes long before their winning ways are set in motion. It's precisely what motivates them to achieve that "win" in the first place.

That's why people will do their best to get ahead of you in traffic. That's why the'll grab the cab or the parking spot you were waiting for. That's why they try to get more luggage onto a plane than is normally allowed. That's why they'll keep silent when the cashier hands them back more money than they knew they deserved.

It's a pervasive instinct the transcends most human differences, and spans all cultures, in all places, across history. The suggestion that we might have fewer cheaters if we were to only change the nature of our competitions is both embarrassingly childish and ignorant of our true nature. Winning against others is what we owe our very existence to.

So you think the researchers who did those studies cheated? They didn’t really find what they claimed to find? Because what they claimed to find is in fact that having won previously predisposes one to cheating more. Not cheating for the first time ever, no one is saying that most people never cheat. Just cheat more.

IOW, it’s a statistical effect. From the link:

"Dishonesty is a pretty complex phenomenon — there are all sorts of mechanisms behind it," said Schurr. "But people who win competitions feel more entitled, and that feeling of entitlement is what predicts dishonesty."

Notice they didn't claim that winning is the only process that contributes to a feeling of entitlement (being born rich generally does, too, e.g., not to mention being allowed to have everything you want when you're young). They just concluded that winning is one contributing factor, and that entitlement strongly contributes to cheating.

Nor do the researchers think competition could or should be eliminated:

Schurr, who calls competition "one of the greatest inventions of economists," doesn't believe it's inherently bad. But he does think it could use some reining in.

If you have a problem with this, you’re welcome to post a critique of the study, but nothing in your posts so far constitutes this. On the contrary, I think you're being simplistic in saying "people like to win". Just step into the world and you will see there is enormous variation in how much people want to win. Some people are obsessed with winning, will do anything to win. For many others, it really isn't that big a deal. They have other priorities. Likewise, if you think everyone behaves as described in your second paragraph, I don't think you've observed the world very carefully.

Everyone does want to survive, but that's not quite the same thing. It's been quite a long time since individuals in our species had to win in order to survive.

Agreed. Also, people have very different, necessarily subjective conceptions of what it means to win. For some people, in some situations, winning is establishing cooperation, working together toward a common goal.

I'm not inclined to think that people are born cheaters. I think cheating is a learned behavior.

 

[Jacques de Molay]

Re:

if you think everyone behaves as described in your second paragraph, I don't think you've observed the world very carefully.

I never claimed it to be "everyone" as I'm sure you fully realize. Truth is, I had expanded my thoughts more fully in my first attempt but the dysfunctional 502 issues of this forum meant they that vanished, and I couldn't be bothered to rehash my entire argument. I thought my more obvious points would have been obvious.

But reading now, I see no need to further strengthen my point, as the post below perfectly captures what I was trying to convey.

I watched a pre-K (my daughters) class playing musical chairs when I arrived to pick her up last night.

The final two for one chair clearly were "bending" the rules of going round the chair in one direction, and both were watching the teachers finger on the CD player to see when she made a move.

Whatever the motivation to cheat to win is, it can be seen very early.

Precisely.

 

[Snapper19]

Some of these articles do tend to overcomplicate things. I think it's pretty simple - some people are predisposed to cheating and dishonesty, and some aren't. In general this relates fairly closely to the values imbued upon them during their formative years, and in my experience if someone is going to cheat they do so from an early age, rarely breaking into that mould when fully established in adulthood. I have seen much of it begin in childhood and the early teens. That doesn't necessarily mean it will persist, particularly if they are caught, humiliated, and appropriately sanctioned early on. That can prove effective if the parents are none too impressed with the cheating, and hence we can conclude that the environmental triggers lay beyond the family unit ( such as peer pressure and so forth). But the family influence can be significant. I can think back to my early running days when I was racing in the Juniors. I raced cross country, 1500 m and 800 m. In the cross-country events I would be routinely beaten by runners who were notably behind the field in other (track) races, and who generally didn't match my physicality and training commitment. I remember the day when I once spied, through the trees, one of my so-called competitors jumping into her father's car, and taking a couple of miles off the route. Still another racer had discovered a shortcut, and whilst lagging behind me had miraculously reappear ahead of me later on. I remember the disgust I felt, and at no point was there any temptation to follow that line of behaviour. I knew what the consequences would be if I were caught, but worse than that I would need to go forward in life with that on my conscience. I won quite a few medals, but there was a lot of cheating going on and I was disillusioned. I imagined they were the dopers of the future.

And it is 'conscience' which dictates much of it, and partly explains why so many cyclists leave the sport early on. My conclusion is that any competitive arena will attract certain personality types, and most of them will be comfortable with doing whatever it takes in order to achieve - without feeling particularly bad about it. This is partly why I have no sympathy whatsoever with the well worn argumenta that cyclists use along the lines of 'I had no choice' and 'I doped because I had to in order to do the job I loved' and 'everybody else was doing it so it didn't seem wrong at the time'. Pathetic.

Edit: I will also say that in my opinion financial reward is not necessarily the key motivator to cheating - we see cheating across-the-board, even if they are set to win the wooden spoon in the amateur ranks. I feel it's predominantly ego (be that driven by a sense of inferiority or narcissism) and a very loose sense of what is or is not 'sporting behaviour'.

 

[Snapper19]

Another reason people cheat (at least in cycling and athletics) is that there are so few actual deterrents. The system is heavily weighted in your favour.

Even if you get caught, redemption isn't that difficult if you go about it in a determined fashion. Heck, some athletes have elevated that to a fine art and continue to profit from it - just look at David Millar, JV, and Armstrong's US Postal posse.

I also think cheats have an 'it won't happen to me' attitude. Then if it happens, there is a tendency to play the victim and blame everybody else. Narcissistic behaviour, to varying degrees, seems to be inherent to cheating psychology.

 

[sniper]

see, this is why I do like German doping journalism, despite their obvious blind spot for soccer.
They have a record of asking the questions to real, unconflicted, specialists with no stake in prosport.
http://www.faz.net/aktuell/sport/sportpolitik/doping/designer-doping-stoffe-im-leistungssport-14069048.html
The specialist says a whole range of undetectable designer drugs is out there, and more easy to purchase than ever before. And more difficult to detect than ever before.
He sarcastically wishes the antidoping agencies 'good luck'.

 

[Snapper19]

Yeah, that's frightening. Another thing which I feel is inherent to doping psychology, aside from the belief they won't be caught, is a complete disregard for possible health consequences. They're happy to be guinea pigs, to experiment, while sticking their fingers in their ears and their hands over their eyes. Some of them will do anything, no matter what. That recklessness, wow. One element of having a conscience is that it forces you to consider the consequences (real, perceived, or rare) of the things you do. That seems to be rare in professional cycling.

 

[The Hitch]

Because they come from Russia. Or at least, not from the UK.