Cheater's High

Though models of ethical decision-making argue that negative emotions such as guilt, shame, and fear of detection help discourage most people from acting unethically, whether by cheating, stealing, or other actions, research testing this assumption have usually focused on why people obey orders that cause harm to someone else (i.e., the Milgram obedience studies) which appear to provoke strong emotion.

Is there an emotional high that people experience when they get away with doing something underhanded?

There were also some research subjects who were completely ambivalent over whether they cheated or not.

Considering the sheer pervasiveness of unethical behavior demonstrated by crime statistics, the “cheater’s high” that people experience when engaging in forbidden activities may be a more potent motivator than most people realize.

While acting unethically does not necessarily lead to "feeling high", guilt is obviously not the deterrent people assume it to be.

As well, people are attracted by “forbidden fruit” making taboo activities more attractive than they might have been otherwise.

But what about relatively victimless crimes such as computer piracy, tax evasion, insurance fraud, or cheating on tests?

According to available statistics on the real prevalence of consumer crime, the economic costs of these crimes is astronomical with billions of dollars lost each year to bogus insurance claim, false tax statements, employee theft, etc.

Researcher Paul Ekman has already commented on the “duping delight” experienced after successfully carrying out a deception which is commonly seen in many confidence artists such as Frank Abagnale.

This had nothing to do with looking virtuous for the researchers since the ones expecting to feel bad after cheating expected the others in the experiments to feel the same.