Convenience Theory

In the LaBeff et al. (Cite) survey of student cheaters, appeal to higher loyalty was the third most prevalent reason the students gave for their cheating. They claimed an obligation to their peer group overrode their resistance to cheating, such as helping a friend that needed a better grade. In the McCabe survey (Cite), seven percent of the students claimed appeal to higher loyalties as a justification for their cheating.

McCabe’s larger survey fully supported the findings of the earlier and smaller Labeff et al. survey on all aspects of the application of neutralization theory to college student cheating. Both studies found that neutralization permits some students to justify cheating in their own minds.

Minor (Cite) identified two more techniques of neutralization in addition to the five techniques that were identified by Sykes and Matza. These two techniques are:

1. Defense of Necessity. Defense of necessity reduces guilt by allowing offenders to view their deviance as the only choice available to them in a given set of circumstances (Cite). Offenders may claim their criminal behavior was necessary to survive or to achieve vital economic goals, such as graduation from college (Cite). Student cheaters also use this defense to justify their illegal behavior (Cite).

2. Metaphor of the Ledger. In metaphor of the ledger, offenders feel they have built up a sufficient supply of “good” behavior to their credit and thus can indulge in some “bad” behavior without any feelings of guilt. Students who feel they are “good people” who only need a little help in certain situations, may use metaphor of the ledger to justify their cheating.

Thurman et al. (Cite) found that tax evaders used one other neutralization strategy to justify their tax evasion. The tax evaders felt that since everyone else was cheating on their taxes, then they also should be allowed to cheat (Cite). This same neutralization may also be used by college student cheaters.

Although delinquency and cheating are similar in the way the offenders view their illegal acts, there are two main differences between the two groups: (1) delinquents feel the legal system is out to get them, while the cheaters feel the law is on their side; and (2) cheaters consider themselves to be more committed to conventional values and respectability than do delinquents. Consequently, cheaters have a greater need to neutralize the moral bind of the law than do delinquents (Cite). Cheaters can cover themselves in “purity” because the “structural immortality” of society provides them with a virtual library of verbal techniques to use in their neutralization of the moral bind of the law (Cite). Neutralization theory does have its critics. While neutralization theorists suggest that offenders hold rather global notions of right and wrong, such as “thou shalt not steal,” critics contend that individuals have more specific guidelines for behavior in times of temptation, such as when they use levels of cheating in their thought process to consider some types of cheating as moral and other types as immoral (Cite). Sheley’s research also found that since there was no homogeneity of moral values in society, initial offenses do not always require neutralization ((Cite).