Is cheating bad whatever the circumstances, or are some cheats better than others?  It's an interesting hypothesis and the basis of some new research by the University of Bath.  For many of us we like to believe that things are pretty clear cut.  Something is either right, or it's wrong.  There isn't much of a grey area, and the situation doesn't influence our morality.

Unfortunately the research suggests this could not be further from the truth.  In reality when people cheat, they typically look for any means of justifying their behaviour.  The first experiment got participants to roll a dice from within a cup.  The cup had a hole in so they could see what the number was but no one else could.  They then reported the number fo the researcher.  The twist was that a donation would be made to Cancer Research UK depending on the score they achieved.  A 1 for instance would mean a 10p donation, whilst a 6 would mean a 60p donation.

As you might expect, a suprisingly high number of people reported that they scored a 6, 24.5% to be exact.  Statistics would suggest just 17% would get a 6, so around 9% were telling porky pies.  I wrote about a similar study a few weeks ago that was testing for cheating amongst different classes.  You can read who was more likely to cheat here.

The second experiment was more of a thought experiment.  The same participants had to imagine rolling a dice three times over and over.  They were shown 20 hypothetical sequences for those 3 rolls.  Now each of the three mythical dice had significance.  The first one represented a cash prize of £1 per number (so a 6 would equal £6).  The other two numbers were used to establish fairness and prove the dice wasn't faulty.  As before the experiment wanted to test whether the participant would tell the truth about number 1 or a lie.

In this experiment the researchers found that the results of the second and third rolls played a part.  For instance if they imagined they had rolled a six in either the second or third roll, they were also much more likely to say the first was also a six, even though the latter rolls were irrelevant.  The researchers suggest these irrelevant rolls made it easier for them to justify lying about the first roll.  Some 16% of participants fell into this group, with another 9% simply out and out liers.

Which might explain why so often when a footballer is caught diving, as Ashley Young was above, he tries to justify it with claims that he slipped or there was some contact or other.  Of course being able to explain it does not excuse it.