Dishonesty and its Relation to Anxiety

This study utilized one of the methods of measuring dishonesty which has become standard among researchers to see if a relationship existed between dishonesty and overt, covert and total anxiety of an individual. It was also hypothesized that there would be a sex difference in regards to dishonesty. The subjects were 21 males and 49 females who were enrolled in psychology courses at Fort Hays Kansas State College. The subjects were administered the duplicating test on one day; it was graded and returned to the subjects for self scoring three days later. The differences between the two scorings was the subject’s dishonesty score. The IPAT Anxiety Scales was administered to all subjects after they scored their answer sheets. As expected, it was found that those subjects that scored high on the anxiety scale scored high on the dishonesty measure. Subjects with higher scores in covert anxiety cheated more than subjects with higher scores in overt anxiety. This was exactly reversed from what was hypothesized. The sex difference was not found to be significant. An incidental finding indicated that subjects who were below the mean number of misses did not cheat as much as those subjects above the mean. It was suggested that further research is needed to study the relationship between anxiety, achievement need, and dishonesty.