Faking it Even After you Make it? Exploring How Organizational Lay Theories of Intelligence Impact Cheating on Difficult Tasks

Abstract

Organizational lay theories of intelligence (i.e., beliefs shared within an organization about the nature of intelligence) have been found to play an important role in shaping people’s experiences and behavior within particular settings (Emerson & Murphy, 2015a; Murphy & Dweck, 2010). In three studies, I investigated whether an organization’s entity (i.e., intelligence is fixed) or incremental (i.e., intelligence is malleable) lay theory might impact people’s cheating behavior in a demanding testing context. Results revealed that people tended to cheat more in the entity (vs. incremental) environment after failing to meet a high performance standard. In Study 2, participants perceived cheating to be more common in the entity (vs. incremental) organization and that the entity organization endorsed performance-avoidance goals more and mastery goals less; yet, these perceptions did not statistically mediate participants’ cheating. In Study 3, participants cheated more in the entity (vs. incremental) context even after being praised for their past performance; notably, the type of praise that participants received influenced the particular cheating strategy they employed.