The Connection of Belief in a Just World with the Attitude to Academic Dishonesty among Schoolchildren with High and Low Loyalty to Cheating

Abstract

The article examines the relationship of Belief in a Just World (BJW) with the attitude to academic dishonesty among high school students. The research was aimed at checking the general hypothesis about the difference in the structure of the connection between the belief in a just world with the attitude towards dishonesty of schoolchildren who are loyal and not loyal to dishonesty. A total of 516 subjects, of which 274 were female, took part in the study; the average age was 15.5. The study used the Scale of Belief in a just world (C. Dalbert), which includes two subscales: “Faith in a just world in general” and “Faith in justice towards the subject” and, to assess attitudes to academic impiety, the vignette method. The study showed that schoolchildren with high and low loyalty to cheating differ in the structure of the ties between the BJW and the attitude to dishonesty. Disloyal to dishonesty assess the permissibility of dishonesty as contrary to the image of a world that is fair to them personally and consider the possible punishment for cheating to be fair. The connections of the belief in a just world in general with the attitude to dishonesty are not significant. For those loyal to dishonesty, the assessment of the world as fair to them and to everyone is directly related to the prevalence of cheating, and the connections of both scales of the BJW with the assessment of the possible consequences of dishonesty and its permissibility are not significant. In schoolchildren loyal to dishonesty, both scales are directly related only to the assessment of the prevalence of cheating, the other links are not significant.