cheating

Definition of cheating

Noun

cheating (uncountable)

1. An act of deception, fraud, trickery, imposture, or imposition.

Adjective

cheating (comparative more cheating, superlative most cheating)

1. Unsporting or underhand.
2. Unfaithful or adulterous.

Verb

cheating

1. Present participle of cheat.

Further reading

Cheating refers to the breaking of rules to gain advantage in a competitive situation. The rules infringed may be explicit, or they may be from an unwritten code of conduct based on morality, ethics or custom, making the identification of cheating a subjective process. Cheating can refer specifically to marital infidelity. Someone who is known for cheating is referred to as a cheat in British English, and a cheater in American English.

Sport, games and gambling

Sports are governed by both customs and explicit rules regarding acts which are permitted and forbidden at the event and away from it. Forbidden acts frequently include performance-enhancing drug taking (known as "doping"), using equipment that does not conform to the rules or altering the condition of equipment during play, and deliberate harassment or injury to competitors.

High profile examples of alleged cheating include Ben Johnson's disqualification following the 100 metres final at the 1988 Summer Olympics, and admissions of steroid use by former professional baseball players after they have retired, such as José Canseco and Ken Caminiti.

One of the most famous instances of cheating occurred during the 1986 FIFA World Cup quarter-final, when Diego Maradona used his hand to punch the ball into the goal of England goalkeeper Peter Shilton. Using the hand or arm by anyone other than a goalkeeper is illegal according to the rules of association football.

Illegally altering the condition of playing equipment is frequently seen in sports such as baseball and cricket. For example in baseball, a pitcher using a doctored baseball (e.g. putting graphite or Vaseline on the baseball), or a batter using a corked bat are some examples of this.

Circumvention of rules governing conduct and procedures of a sport can also be considered cheating. During the 2007 Formula One Season, driver Fernando Alonso was labelled a "cheat" for exchanging confidential information between the teams of Scuderia Ferrari and Mclaren.

Personal relationships

In western and other cultures, couples sometimes expect sexual monogamy of each other. If so, then cheating commonly refers to forms of infidelity, particularly adultery. However, there are other divisions of infidelity, which may be emotional. Cheating by thinking of, touching and talking with someone may be equally damaging to one of the parties. Emotional cheating may be correlated to that of emotional abuse, which to date is treated seriously in a court of law as physical cheating. With the expansion of understanding of other cultures, there is a wide spectrum of what cheating means. When in a committed relationship, the definition of cheating is based on both parties' opinions, and both parties may redefine their understanding to match the party at an either lower or higher extreme of this definition. Cheating constitutes doing anything, whether verbal or physical, that one would not do in front of their significant other. Such examples would include: expressing attraction to another person,talking,electronic communications, texting, data, kissing, making out, and sexual relations.

Many people consider cheating to be any violation of the mutually agreed-upon rules or boundaries of a relationship, which may or may not include sexual monogamy. For example, in some polygamous relationships, the concepts of commitment and fidelity do not necessarily hinge on complete sexual or emotional monogamy. Whether polygamous or monogamous, the boundaries to which people agree vary widely, and sometimes these boundaries evolve within each relationship.

In video games

In video games, cheating can take the form of secret access codes in single-player games (such as the Konami code) which unlock a bonus for the player when entered, and add-ons or exploits which give players an unfair advantage in online multiplayer games.

Attitudes towards cheating vary. On one hand, cheating allows casual players to complete games at much-accelerated speed, and this is especially helpful nowadays as typical Role Playing Games (RPGs) can take well over ten hours to finish. For single-player games, this is largely a matter of taste. On the other hand, as internet-based multi-player games, such as MMORPGs are becoming more and more popular, cheating in those types of games is often prohibited. In many circles, the purchasing of items or currency is also considered to be cheating.

Academic

A small cheat sheet can be used to cheat during an academic examination.

There is enough evidence to conclude that academic cheating is an extremely common occurrence in high schools and colleges in the United States. 70% of public high school students admit to serious test cheating. 60% say they have plagiarized papers. Only 50% of private school students, however, admit to this. The report was made in June 2005 by Rutgers University professor Donald McCabe for The Center for Academic Integrity. The findings were corroborated in part by a Gallup survey. In McCabe's 2001 of 4500 high school students, "74% said they cheated on a test, 72% cheated on a written work, and 97% reported to at least had copied someone's homework or peeked at someone's test. 1/3 reported to have repeatedly cheated." The new revolution in high-tech digital info contributes enormously to the new wave in cheating: online term-paper mills sell formatted reports on practically any topic; services exist to prepare any kind of homework or take online tests for students, despite the fact that this phenomenon, and these websites, are well known to educators, and camera phones are used to send pictures of tests; MP3 players can hold digitalized notes; graphing calculators store formulas to solve math problems. Increased competition for college admissions in recent years may also be to blame.