The Contemporary Plagiarist: The Roles of Technology and Moral Development

This research examines a chronic problem in academic settings – inappropriate copying or misuse of source materials–i.e., plagiarism. We conduct a computer-based writing experiment to examine the effects of psychological and situational characteristics on subjects’ propensity to misappropriate text. Specifically, we examine to what extent such misappropriations may be explained by available technological support and an individual’s level of cognitive moral development (CMD). We hypothesize that more technological support will be positively associated with misuse while advanced CMD will be negatively associated with misuse. Lastly, we explore the interaction of technology and CMD on our measure of misuse. We find that both CMD and technology play a significant role in explaining such misappropriations. Subjects in the high technological support condition demonstrate a level of misuse that is significantly higher than those in the control condition. While higher levels of CMD are associated with a significant decrease in misuse.