Professors who use detection programs like Turnitin in the hope of dissuading students from cheating may be on the wrong track. New research by psychologists at Ohio State University at Newark focuses instead on profiling the students who are least likely to cheat, and the findings could help identify a target audience for anti-cheating campaigns, one of the researchers said in a news release from the university.

The research is based on two studies that together involved more than 450 undergraduates at the Newark campus. The studies found, not too surprisingly, that students who said they had not cheated in the past month or year and had no plans to cheat in the future also scored highest on tests measuring qualities like courage, empathy, and honesty. Non-cheaters were also less likely to believe that their peers had cheated, the studies found. By contrast, students who scored lower on measurements of courage, empathy, and honesty were more likely to report having cheated, and to believe that other students cheated more often than they themselves did, thus rationalizing their behavior.

Honest students “have a more positive view of others,” explained Sarah Staats, a professor of psychology and a co-author of the study, who presented the findings this past weekend at the annual conference of the American Psychological Association, in Boston. The findings, she said, have implications for identifying both “academic heroes” (non-cheaters) and effective target audiences for anti-cheating campaigns.

When researchers asked students if they planned to cheat in the future, 47 percent said they did not, while 24 percent agreed or strongly agreed that they would. Anti-cheating campaigns, said Ms. Staats, may be able to sway the undecided 29 percent through messages rooted in positive psychology. “Our results suggest that interventions may have a real opportunity to influence at least a quarter of the student population,” she said. —Paula Wasley