Department of Psychology, University of Augsburg, Germany.
University of Mannheim, Germany.
Br J Educ Psychol. 2020 May;90(2):537-559. doi: 10.1111/bjep.12310. Epub 2019 Jul 30.
Previous research has shown that achievement goals affect the frequency of academic dishonesty. However, mixed findings suggest that especially the effect of performance goals might depend on contextual factors.
We wanted to investigate whether crucial aspects of the achievement situation influence the magnitude of the effect of performance goals (here: focused on appearance) on dishonesty. Specifically, we propose that social norms regarding the acceptance of dishonesty moderate the positive effect of performance goals on academic dishonesty.
We sampled 105 German university students. They were teacher trainees, mostly in their first year at university and on average 20.6 (SD = 3.6) years old (72.4% female).
We conducted a 2 (induced appearance goals vs. no goal induction) × 2 (cheating confederate vs. no observable cheating behaviour by this person) experiment. A manipulation check confirmed that the manipulation of appearance goals was successful. Cheating behaviour was observed by a confederate student and subsequently classified by two raters. Additionally, participants' dishonesty in self-presentation questions was measured using deviations from baseline measures.
The induction of appearance goals only led to increased cheating when the social norm suggested that cheating behaviour was an acceptable way to increase performance (i.e., cheating confederate condition). For deceiving, we found a positive main effect of appearance goals. Appearance goals mediated these effects from goal manipulation on academic dishonesty.
Taken together, our results highlight that the mixed findings on the effect of performance goals on academic dishonesty might be due to uninvestigated moderators such as social norms. Future research should build on these findings to identify additional moderators.
先前的研究表明，成就目标会影响学术不诚实的频率。然而，混合的研究结果表明，尤其是表现目标的效果可能取决于情境因素。
我们想调查成就情境的关键方面是否会影响表现目标（此处：关注表现）对不诚实行为的影响程度。具体来说，我们提出，关于接受不诚实的社会规范会调节表现目标对学术不诚实的积极影响。
我们抽取了 105 名德国大学生。他们是教师培训生，大多数处于大学一年级，平均年龄为 20.6 岁（标准差=3.6）（72.4%为女性）。
我们进行了一项 2（表现目标诱导 vs. 无目标诱导）×2（作弊同谋者 vs. 该人无可观察到的作弊行为）实验。一项操控检查证实了表现目标的操控是成功的。作弊行为由一名同谋学生观察，并由两名评分人进行分类。此外，参与者在自我呈现问题上的不诚实行为通过与基线测量的偏差来衡量。
只有当社会规范表明作弊行为是提高表现的可接受方式时（即作弊同谋者条件），表现目标的诱导才会导致作弊行为增加。对于欺骗行为，我们发现表现目标有积极的主要影响。表现目标介导了这些目标操纵对学术不诚实的影响。
总的来说，我们的结果强调了关于表现目标对学术不诚实影响的混合研究结果可能是由于未被调查的调节因素，如社会规范。未来的研究应该基于这些发现，以确定其他调节因素。
