Students who cheat more likely to seek government jobs
Posted By Robby Soave On 5:27 PM 11/19/2013 In | No Comments
A new study suggests that the mistrust of government is well-justified, at least in India: Indian college students who cheated on simple tasks were disproportionately likely to seek government jobs, researchers found.
The study, which was conducted by researchers from Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania, asked college students to roll dice and then report the results. The higher the student’s rolls, the more money he would be paid — providing a financial incentive to lie. Though researchers did not keep track of the individual rolls, they used a statistical analysis to determine how much cheating had occurred.
Cheating was rampant, the Los Angeles Times reports. A third of the students involved in the experiment reported results that would place them in the top 1 percent of theoretical outcomes.
Even worse, students who cheated were 6.3 percent more likely to say they wanted to work for the government.
“Overall, we find that dishonest individuals — as measured by the dice task — prefer to enter government service,” said Rema Hanna, an associate professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government,in a statement.
Researchers did not know whether they would find similar results for college students in countries like the United States, where government workers are better paid and perceived as less corrupt.
Still, American faith in government is at its lowest mark in recorded history. Just 19 percent of U.S. citizens trust their government, according to the Pew Research Center.
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