INDIVIDUAL-DIFFERENCES AND CHEATING BEHAVIOR - GUILT AND CHEATING IN COMPETITIVE SITUATIONS

To examine whether guilt would inhibit immoral behavior, subjects were differentiated on their feelings of anticipatory (AG) and posttransgr essional (PTG) guilt and subsequently placed in an anagram task shown to induce a high level of cheating. Results indicated that neither pre - nor post-test AG was related to cheating behavior, and test-retest a dministration indicated that the AG scale was unreliable. The PTG scal e, however, was found to be a temporally reliable measure of guilt. In order to assess the relative contributions of pre-test posttransgress ional guilt, the ability to persist, and gender to cheating behavior, a saturated multiple regression model of centered predictor effects an d interaction terms was constructed. Results revealed a significant ge nder X persistence interaction. The cheating behavior of males was not significantly influenced by the ability to persist. On the other hand females who exhibited a strong ability to persist rarely cheated, whi le those who were unable to persist cheated a great deal. Finally, sub jects who felt the most posttransgressional guilt cheated more frequen tly. These findings provide additional evidence that guilt may be posi tively related to cheating behavior.