Academic Honesty: Why It Matters in Psychology

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The other day, while looking for a free plagiarism checker to use in addition to the one provided by my institution, I came across a website blatantly selling papers to students. This particular site promises, for a high fee per page, to write students completely unique papers that won’t get caught as plagiarism. They’ll even write your Ph.D. dissertation for you (uh…good luck defending that).

All professors are familiar with these sites. The fact that students are paying others to produce work for them is not a secret, at all. Most of us have caught students doing this, or versions of it, and though it’s exhausting and demoralizing, we’ve learned to deal with it semester after semester.

What is academic honesty?

This behavior falls under the heading of “academic honesty.” All colleges and universities have academic honesty policies that address issues like plagiarism and cheating, including serious consequences for violating them. I, for one, am particularly adept at detecting copy/paste/change-a-few-words plagiarism. Frankly, half the time it’s obvious because it’s incomprehensible. As many professors will commiserate, if I wasn’t so good at detecting it, life would be much easier.

Most of us on the policy enforcement side can relate stories with versions of, “But I bought the paper! I didn’t plagiarize, the person who wrote it did! I shouldn’t be held responsible!” In fact, I receive more and more pushback like that every semester: “My cousin wrote the paper for me and I had no idea she plagiarized! She should get in trouble, not me!”

Where does academic dishonesty come from?

We certainly understand that issues like plagiarism may come from lack of confidence in one’s writing skills, being unprepared for college, pressure, inaccessible resources, and the like, but overall, I’ve found it to be a matter of buy-in. Either students buy in to the concept of academic honesty or they don’t, and this has implications beyond school.

How is academic honesty linked to psychology?

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I’m less concerned with magically convincing students to follow academic honesty policies than I am in getting them to think about why it is important in the context of psychology. Though I am indeed a prevention practitioner, I’m not naïve enough to think I can change someone’s mind about the value of academic honesty. I am, however, hopeful that those studying psychology will consider the following connections (and then some):

• Learning – You’re not learning much if you’re not doing the work. I once listened to an NPR story about students purchasing papers in which a student said, “I feel like I am doing my own work because I’m using my own money.” Come on. Psychology is all about learning. It’s a topic in every introductory psychology course. It’s usually an entire chapter in introductory psychology textbooks. We have classes specifically focused on it. One of the foundations of learning is that the learner be…involved.
• Morality – “What is moral?” students ask. I can’t answer that, but I am pretty confident that cheating is not. Again, this is a topic that is usually covered in introductory psychology and then over and over again in developmental psychology, social psychology, and more. You’ll even find “moral psychology” as its own field. Psychologist Lawrence Kholberg asked if subjects would steal a drug. Today, he could ask if you’d buy a term paper.
• Future orientation – Personality psychology research suggests that those with a “future orientation” tend to have better outcomes than those with a “present orientation.” The idea is that if you have a future orientation, you tend to, well, look to the future and anticipate future outcomes more than those who are focused solely on the present. While a concern with consequences is associated with mortality (e.g. Kholberg’s theory), the ability or tendency to envision potential consequences is associated with a future orientation. Could there be a more psychological question than, “Is it worth it?”
• Conscientiousness and trust – Conscientiousness is a core personality trait. Trust is essential in development and relationships. Academic dishonesty violates trust and displays low conscientiousness.
• Human services – Students often take psychology because it’s required for medical careers, careers involving working with children, and other human service careers. Go back to the first point about learning. I once had a nurse who tried to inject Heparin directly into my muscle. I had to fight to get her to inject it subcutaneously, as directed. When you work in a hospital, on a general surgery floor, not knowing where to safely inject a blood thinner is alarming. When you don’t do your own work, you don’t have a chance to learn and for a discipline preparing students to work with humans, especially children, everything associated with academic honesty, all of the above, is essential.
• Personal fable – Simply put, this component of David Elkind’s adolescent egocentrism theory suggests that adolescents tend to think they are special and unique. “It might happen to you, but it won’t happen to me.” I can’t tell you how many students are shocked and very angry when caught. In fact, I once read a Twitter thread from professors about the very real dangers associated with catching plagiarism. Many students are still in adolescence, and thinking you’re an exception who won’t get caught is a sure sign.
• Entitlement and violence – Speaking of anger, the idea that you’re special is linked to entitlement, a very psychological concept. In fact, those who study education research “academic entitlement,” in which students feel they should get a good grade just because they attended class or just because they turned in work. Having worked in domestic and sexual violence for a very long time, I know that entitlement is often coupled with violence, as challenges to one’s sense of entitlement frequently result in anger and aggression. Linking homework to violence seems incredible, but it’s a very real possibility.
• Behavioral consistency – As much as we may want to, professors generally can’t share information about other students with other professors. There’s no, “Hey, watch out for this student, they told me their cousin is doing all their homework for them.” However, all academic honesty policies do require some level of reporting to campus administration and they know about behavioral consistency, another psychological concept. This concept suggests that people tend to behave in a consistent manner; they behave in ways that match their past behavior. Need I say more?

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One of the main reasons for academic honesty is scientific integrity. I didn’t address it above because, frankly, I find that’s not a very convincing argument, especially when these “pay for us to do your homework” sites target students so aggressively. I found a few more of these sites and recently used their online chat tool. Before I disclosed that I am a professor, and subsequently got kicked off, every single one guaranteed that my professor and my institution “wouldn’t find out.” That’s appalling, not just for the reasons above, but because we do find out, and it can ruin a student’s entire academic career.

Psychology is fascinating and fun. Why wouldn’t you want to learn it, anyway?