It seems to me pretty much impossible to cheat in an exam, unless you get hold of the paper in advance. So what if you've got a few facts and figures surreptitiously written down? How much difference is that going to make?

I would be cheating future competition applying for the same jobs as me

I was asked specifically in an interview recently why I received a mark of 46 in Solid State Physics

Not sure if this is what you mean though specifically. But either way this is a pretty good reason to cheat (in like a, pros and cons, let's first look at the pros kind of sense)

Areily and his colleagues at MIT and Stanford did tons of experiments on this subject. I higly recommend his books and articles. He found that a large percentage of people cheat on test, especially when it is easy to get away with it. Also, you're right that many people cheat a little, while very few cheat a lot.

I read this forum for almost 7 years now, but time and time again I'm flabbergasted about how rational you guys think other people think and act. The evidence is all around you that so many decisions are not made anywhere near rationally.

Is that different to saying they dont cheat when the think its not okay to cheat?

“Man is a rational animal. So at least we have been told. Throughout a long life I have searched diligently for evidence in favor of this statement. So far, I have not had the good fortune to come across it.”
-Bertrand Russell

Fair enough. I might read a bit of this book next time I'm at the library.

my own little experience, back in school days before a certain exam started, there was some incident which got the invidulators distracted.

me and two mates quickly chose a page to look at at the end of the question paper. we managed to quickly discuss the questions on the last three pages in the few minutes before the paper started and i got an A.

that A ended up proving quite useful.

If there is no downside, why not take advantage of extra knowledge and get that A and improve your future chances?

Because one may hold values not reflected in a cost-benefit analysis like the phrase "if there is no downside" suggests.

Or, to put it a different way, the downside not reflected in a cost-benefit (reward-cost) analysis is to go against your own values (although there can also be cost-reward effects for going against your own values as well)

I feel like people mean something specific by "cost-benefit analysis" when things like this are said. It has always seemed to be me that some sort of cost-benefit analysis is applicable to anything, provided you give yourself enough latitude to define costs and benefits appropriately (e.g. your second paragraph here.) If one wants to argue that for things like ethical quandaries it can be difficult to quantify these things, I wouldn't disagree, but that seems to be a practical rather than principled opposition to it.

I understand "cost benefit analysis" in this context as applying decision theory, it's no problem to take into account one's ethical values. Everything deemed significant enough by the decider should be taken into account.

I'll be honest with the question:

In high school I cheated some. Largely on uncompleted homework. Why was it uncompleted? I was busy with sports, girls, etc. As much of the homework was the standard "busy" work at the time I didn't feel bad. Looking back I wish I didn't cheat, but it certainly isn't something that keeps me up at night. Test wise I rarely remember cheating except for one instance where a teacher gave us a take home test. We all got together and filled it out. I was smart enough to be lax on the homework and still ace most tests. Typical A-B student in high school who could get all A's by applying one's self.

College I don't really remember cheating much. Maybe glancing at someone else's test on a multiple choice test or two. Using the internet to help write a paper on a book I'd half written. Certainly not something I was doing all the time.

In high school a TON of people cheated, and in college less in my experience. Why do people do it? I'd say for the most part people don't put school as a high priority compared to girls, video games, sports, etc. at the high school level. If I was a better manager of my time I wouldn't have needed to cheat.

A lot of people view school as another hoop to jump through. Cheating helps you jump through that hoop and I don't think many view it as unethical at the time as some people on here are suggesting. I had a few friends who routinely stole smokes and chew from a quick shop (they were behind where the cashier couldn't see for some reason) and I always viewed that as something I would never do...but when it came to the times I cheated I never viewed it as on par with stealing. Looking back maybe, but at the time? I just knew my trig homework wasn't done and I needed to get it done to avoid a 0.

It is only a little more complicated than that. It seems to be more of a quantity of cheating that is easily rationalized, not whether or not to cheat.

Also, "think" might be a little too strong. It seems that average Joe just doesn't think too much about it, or have a grasp of how people (including himself) work. It was somewhat surprising that it isn't just a utility or ev calculation to decide whether to cheat or not.

Funny how we keep getting back to the weakness of old notions of ev in standard theories of behavior and finance. There are internal costs that are overlooked in the old theories.

Still seems like two sides of the same coin. Morality is a journey of seeing what we can rationalise. The suck it and see theory of ethics (much of the sucking being va the imagination)

Someone below mentioned homework. I copied homework all the time, not remotely wrong imo, obviously at some point you have to grow up and just not do it but there's no moral reason to do school homework. Happily cheated on attendence records as well and would cheat on class tests as well if I wanted.

Wouldn't cheat on a formal exam but coursework which counts towards the final grade is were it all becomes morally fuzzy and we have to rely on suck it and see.

The children need to read Plato Republic or watch the Godfather.

"You have to answer for Socrates, Anytus"