Study Finds Online Cheating Is Infectious

[wraggster]

A study of online gamers in the Steam community finds that those who are friends with cheaters are more likely to begin cheating themselves (http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/27441/?p1=blogs). From the article: 'First up, cheats stick together. The data shows that cheaters are much more likely to be friends with other cheaters. Cheating also appears to be infectious. The likelihood of a fair player becoming labelled as a cheater in future is directly correlated with this person's number of friends who are cheaters. So if you know cheaters, you are more likely to become one yourself. Cheating spreads like flu through this community (http://arxiv.org/abs/1112.4915). Finally, being labelled as a cheat seems to significantly affect social standing. Once a person is labelled as a cheat, they tend to lose friends. Some even cut themselves off from friends by increasing their privacy settings

http://games.slashdot.org/story/11/12/24/2016213/study-finds-online-cheating-is-infectious