A bogus pipeline approach to studying gender differences in cheating behavior

•Students reported relationship and academic cheating in one of three conditions.•Reports of relationship cheating yielded interaction between gender and condition.•Reports of academic cheating yielded no interaction between gender and condition.•Multiple regression showed different predictors as a function of condition.•Gender differences in relationship cheating may be due to reporting differences.

A bogus pipeline procedure was used to examine whether gender and testing condition influenced 474 college students’ reports of cheating behaviors. Participants were assigned to an anonymous condition, a condition in which they believed that a peer would be handling their completed questionnaires, or one in which they thought they were being monitored by a lie detector. For romantic cheating, gender differences were diminished when participants believed their responses were being monitored by a lie detector, whereas academic cheating did not show this interaction between gender and condition. Hypergender ideology and perception of same-sex friends’ cheating variables were less likely to predict cheating in the pipeline condition than in the other conditions, suggesting that social roles influenced reports of sensitive behaviors unless there was pressure to be honest.