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Cheating, how common and why?
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With the recent news of cheating in triathlons and per Dan's suggestion to start a separate thread to discuss the psychology behind why people cheat, I thought I would launch the discussion. Here is an interesting article, written in regards to marathons but definitely applies to triathlons: http://www.runnersworld.com/...heating-at-marathons

Tony
http://www.triathleteguru.com
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Re: Cheating, how common and why? [tonythetriguy] [ In reply to ]
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Narcissistic personality disorder.
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Re: Cheating, how common and why? [tonythetriguy] [ In reply to ]
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tonythetriguy wrote:
With the recent news of cheating in triathlons and per Dan's suggestion to start a separate thread to discuss the psychology behind why people cheat, I thought I would launch the discussion. Here is an interesting article, written in regards to marathons but definitely applies to triathlons:http://www.runnersworld.com/...heating-at-marathons[/quote[/url]]

If you include intentional wheel-sucking drafters, intentional course cutters, and intentional PED users, and any other kind of intentional cheating, I think the amount of cheating going on is much, much greater than anyone wants to think about.
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Re: Cheating, how common and why? [tonythetriguy] [ In reply to ]
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I thought this would be a thread about the Ashley Madison hack.

===================================
I'll tell you all right now, my seat is too low, I'm not aero and I carry too much fluid on the bike.
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Re: Cheating, how common and why? [HuffNPuff] [ In reply to ]
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HuffNPuff wrote:
tonythetriguy wrote:
With the recent news of cheating in triathlons and per Dan's suggestion to start a separate thread to discuss the psychology behind why people cheat, I thought I would launch the discussion. Here is an interesting article, written in regards to marathons but definitely applies to triathlons:http://www.runnersworld.com/...heating-at-marathons[/quote[/url]]

If you include intentional wheel-sucking drafters, intentional course cutters, and intentional PED users, and any other kind of intentional cheating, I think the amount of cheating going on is much, much greater than anyone wants to think about.

What percentage of racers are intentional cheaters? (I would think it would be higher in a world class Kona-type race versus a local sprint - but I know there are plenty of cheaters there, too). Would 10% sound right?
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Re: Cheating, how common and why? [tonythetriguy] [ In reply to ]
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Well...my ex wife was a cheater! Oh wait....wrong kind of cheating.
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Re: Cheating, how common and why? [tonythetriguy] [ In reply to ]
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My post was one of the 3 that Dan deleted in the other thread. I can't remember what I said exactly, but I'll paraphrase...

Not talking about the recent cheating scandal in the W40-44 AG, but viewing it more broadly... First, the disclaimer: This is all just my opinion based on my experience and education for dealing with people in business, fitness training, and coaching regarding human behavior and motivations. I'm not a therapist, psychologist, or psychiatrist, and don't diagnose or treat anything. I just need to be able to recognize some dysfunctions so I can refer clients for the appropriate level of care.

Even though the issue was talked down in the other threads as irrelevant, I think understanding the psychology of cheaters is important for developing effective defenses against cheating. Someone asked how cheaters deal with the risk of getting caught cutting the course. My guess is there are many ways that cheaters' minds play tricks on themselves to deal with it. Most of us can't fathom intentionally planning out and executing a strategy to cut a course. People who do are obviously going to have a different perspective on the matter.

I've encountered people in business and other sports who view getting away with cheating as part of the challenge. If they can win by breaking the rules (or laws or contract terms in business) without getting caught, it's actually more satisfying than if they had achieved their goals within the rules. These people aren't easily deterred by greater penalties, such as 10 minute time penalties and additional running distances for drafting. For them, getting away with it is the objective. It's not unethical to them. From their perspective, those of us who choose to follow the rules are foolish and naive. This is their approach to most things in life. They're not constrained by rules. Only by what they can physically achieve. The way to stop these people from cheating is to have a foolproof system for catching them in the act.

Other's are sucked into a bad vortex where they did well, feel pressure to do better, cheat "a little" one time to keep face, get away with it, feel more pressure to perform, cheat again, etc...They end up in too deep to back out, and don't know what do do.

I'm sure there are many other motivations and issues that lead people to cheat, but these are the two that I've witnessed.

____________________________________________
Don Larkin
Reach For More
http://www.reachformore.fit/
USAT Lvl1 Coach, NSCA-CPT, NASM-CPT, BS Exercise Science
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Re: Cheating, how common and why? [TriMyBest] [ In reply to ]
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What is interesting to me is the number of very top athletes in our sport in our area that openly talk about they draft and thinking nothing about it. Just part of
their game plan. One then has to think if other ways to cheat are things they are doing also.

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Lions don't lose sleep worrying about the sheep
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Re: Cheating, how common and why? [NJSteve] [ In reply to ]
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I'm thinking more like double that - 1 out of 5 - especially when you include the intentional drafters.
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Re: Cheating, how common and why? [HuffNPuff] [ In reply to ]
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I love it when people cheat by drafting me - because they end up being cheaters and covered in my piss. :-)
Last edited by: ou8acracker2: Sep 3, 15 12:41
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Re: Cheating, how common and why? [tonythetriguy] [ In reply to ]
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Your question is an interesting one: "Why do people cheat?" And, what is the psychology behind it.

If you recall your high school psychology there are a number of steps to personal, psychological development. Psychologists disagree on when and even if everyone passes through all of the stages of personal psychological development.

However, one can guess that the primary reason a person cheats is to achieve something they could not legitimately achieve. Their motive for this spurious achievement may be monetary, or it may be (most likely) to bolster their self esteem.

An irony of achieving an accolade such as a race victory, but doing it illegitimately, is that it may make the person appear outwardly more "valid" or credible, but inward their self-esteem may actually be damaged since they know cognitively that they achieved the result illegitimately.

Here's the scary part: Through a quark in human development some people do not even intellectually recognize cheating as outside the ethical definition of "right". They can somehow rationalize it. What they did is "OK" since "everyone is doing it" they had "special circumstances" or they were somehow previously treated unfairly and they rationalize that cheating achieves reciprocity for this prior injustice.

If you were to have candid conversation with the most notorious sports "cheats", top Tour de France winners for example, I wager they would sincerely and honestly assert they did not "cheat" in the strictest definition of the word. That what they did was, "OK, since everyone was doing it".

On the flip side, cheating in individual endurance sports likely does not affect you or I. We go to the local race to have a good race, beat our best time, etc. Someone may produce an illegitimate result to bolster their self esteem- it may even alter our relative race results- but not our performance. We still did what we did. We had a good race, and we raced with integrity. That makes us feel good. Another person's cheating doesn't diminish our performance, even if it diminishes our race result. They must live with the fact that they did not achieve a legitimate result. Some people can rationalize that, but it doesn't diminish our integrity- it only does theirs.

Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com
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Re: Cheating, how common and why? [tonythetriguy] [ In reply to ]
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tonythetriguy wrote:
With the recent news of cheating in triathlons and per Dan's suggestion to start a separate thread to discuss the psychology behind why people cheat, I thought I would launch the discussion. Here is an interesting article, written in regards to marathons but definitely applies to triathlons: http://www.runnersworld.com/...heating-at-marathons

Not a psychiatrist, but I'll take a stab. I've thought about this from time to time when a news story comes out about the topic or I see a thread about it.

I would think that there was some sort of mental struggle cheaters have with how they perceive themselves. Negative self talk, low level of confidence, etc. They cheat to try to fill that black hole of negative self perception with praise and congratulations from others on their "win" or "qualification" for some larger event such as worlds. This quickly goes away, and they feel empty again. They also feel social pressure, whether perceived or real, that they now need to keep up the perception of age group/overall winner or xxx qualifier. In reality, they can't outright win their age group or overall, and/or don't believe they can with out cheating. So they cheat again and again until they get caught. Some, as we have seen, will continue even after they are caught.

At best, cheaters steal the moment from someone. At worst they steal a paycheck from someone deserving. I feel it is deplorable at any level. I would think that knowing you had to cheat to get to that spot would make the self talk/perception even worse.

IDK. Interested to hear what any psychology/sociology experts have to say if we have any.

"Just don’t abandon everything you’ve ever learned because of something someone said on the internet." - Eric McGinnis
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Re: Cheating, how common and why? [RunFatboyRun] [ In reply to ]
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RunFatboyRun wrote:
I thought this would be a thread about the Ashley Madison hack.

Other than for spouses, I don't see much hack action happening on ST :)

Training Tweets: https://twitter.com/Jagersport_com
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Re: Cheating, how common and why? [Tom Demerly] [ In reply to ]
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Tom Demerly wrote:

...On the flip side, cheating in individual endurance sports likely does not affect you or I. We go to the local race to have a good race, beat our best time, etc. Someone may produce an illegitimate result to bolster their self esteem- it may even alter our relative race results- but not our performance. We still did what we did. We had a good race, and we raced with integrity. That makes us feel good. Another person's cheating doesn't diminish our performance, even if it diminishes our race result. They must live with the fact that they did not achieve a legitimate result. Some people can rationalize that, but it doesn't diminish our integrity- it only does theirs.

That assumes we're all intrinsically motivated. For those who are extrinsically motivated, cheaters do take away from them.

____________________________________________
Don Larkin
Reach For More
http://www.reachformore.fit/
USAT Lvl1 Coach, NSCA-CPT, NASM-CPT, BS Exercise Science
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Re: Cheating, how common and why? [TriMyBest] [ In reply to ]
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"That assumes we're all intrinsically motivated."


It does. I'll suggest there really is not much of a valid motive beyond that down where I race in the dregs of the older age category. Even for a guy who wins a national championship in the 50-54 age category, what has he gained? A trophy, a plaque, a title, a mention on a website?


Pro athletes may cheat because they earn a seven-figure income. Doesn't make it right, it does provide some insight into part of their motive. For use normal guys, it's probably just for bragging rights.

Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com
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Re: Cheating, how common and why? [tonythetriguy] [ In reply to ]
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A lot of people who aren't involved in triathlon or running just can't
imagine that a grown up type person would knowingly cheat when there's nothing
worthwhile on the line for doing it.

A few years ago there was a serial cheater in the men's 55-59 age group in some
races I did in the Dallas area. All these races were silly little sprints, silly little sprints
where the 5k run was an out and back with NO timing mat at the turn around.

The "winner" of this (my) age group in these races always ran an very respectable age group time of
19-20 minutes for a 5k.

I mentioned it to several non triathlon friends and they simply would not believe that a person would
do that for basically a piece of junk metal. I guess I wouldn't believe it either.

Find out what it is in life that you don't do well, then don't
do that thing.
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Re: Cheating, how common and why? [tonythetriguy] [ In reply to ]
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Certain forms of cheating are very common. I think a lot of people look at things like PED's and drafting as not really cheating. They somehow rationalize it away.

Systematic and intentional course cutting is the one I don't get. As I mentioned in the other thread I am near certain that someone I trained with cheated a dozen or so years ago in the one and only IM length race they ever did. Not for glory or a place, it was the podunkiest of the podunk races you could do. I think there were only 10 or 12 women in it. And I don't remember her ever bragging about the race. For people who do that, I think their own internal shame is enough. I think that comes from not thinking they can do it without cheating.

But for people who cheat their way to significant victories and placing there is seems to be a common personality defect that runs through them. They all tend to act the same, they react the same when called out, and they brag about their achievements in a way beyond how most people do (and triathletes are not bashful about telling people what they have done).

I don't recall anyone being quite so successful at cheating as Miller has been. It appears she has gotten away with it for years at the very highest levels. Most neve try to win races and most get called out pretty quickly so we never get to see how far they will go.

I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.
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Re: Cheating, how common and why? [TriMyBest] [ In reply to ]
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TriMyBest wrote:
I've encountered people in business and other sports who view getting away with cheating as part of the challenge. If they can win by breaking the rules (or laws or contract terms in business) without getting caught, it's actually more satisfying than if they had achieved their goals within the rules. These people aren't easily deterred by greater penalties, such as 10 minute time penalties and additional running distances for drafting. For them, getting away with it is the objective. It's not unethical to them. From their perspective, those of us who choose to follow the rules are foolish and naive. This is their approach to most things in life. They're not constrained by rules. Only by what they can physically achieve. The way to stop these people from cheating is to have a foolproof system for catching them in the act.

I was once friends with a fairly high profile athlete who conducted much of his personal life this way. It took me a while to figure out the satisfaction he derived from it.
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Re: Cheating, how common and why? [GreenPlease] [ In reply to ]
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One of my favorite quotes is from author Arthur C. Clarke, "We each create our own reality."

Some people create a dog-eat-dog reality where the rules are, there are no rules. If the ref didn't see it, it wasn't a foul. If you didn't test positive, then it wasn't cheating and others are doing it anyway.

We each create our own reality.

In that lies an opportunity. We can create a reality where fairness, integrity and empathy are our north-pointing arrows, or we can create one where we climb over each other on the way to first place by any means.

The individual perspective on which is more "right" may be less important than what we see when we look in the mirror. No one is perfect. Everyone has done something they'd prefer to undo in hindsight. The grace in life is using those bad decisions to make better ones so that person staring back at us from the mirror is a person we can live with.

Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com
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Re: Cheating, how common and why? [GAUG3] [ In reply to ]
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GAUG3 wrote:
Narcissistic personality disorder.

Some yes. Not all.
I guess I am shocked at the seeming "normalcy" of cheating that seems to go on (be accepted) in triathlon. And maybe running too?
But so many of the responses in the Julie Miller cheating thread went something like, "yeah we had a guy in out town that we knew cheated all the time etc etc. "

What s with this? First of all it seems a lot of work and effort to implement some of the schemes these people come up with.

And why, if people had all these suspicions, no one pursued it until now?
And I am not speaking of an accidental course cutter or someone that lost their chip once. I am talking about the chronic cheats. It is really sad to me.
Last edited by: Ty: Sep 3, 15 13:43
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Re: Cheating, how common and why? [TriMyBest] [ In reply to ]
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" From their perspective, those of us who choose to follow the rules are foolish and naive. This is their approach to most things in life."
Talk to any cop or prosecutor and they will tell you that this is normal for crooks and thieves - especially con men. "If you are stupid or weak enough to let me cheat or steal from you, then you are getting what you deserve" They see this as the way the world is and you can either be a stupid sheep or a smart wolf. Most of them see themselves as smarter and superior to others, so why should they have to work for what they can steal. I suspect a lot of these tri-cheaters "know" that they would win anyway if they really wanted to but "don't have the time" or "were injured" or "others have better equipment" so cheating is just allowing what they think should be the correct outcome to happen.
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Re: Cheating, how common and why? [j p o] [ In reply to ]
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Yes! I believe that you nailed it, "a common personality defect that runs through them. "




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Re: Cheating, how common and why? [tonythetriguy] [ In reply to ]
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The psychology is pretty simple. People are competitive and most of us want to get ahead in what we do, whether that's earning more money, winning at sport, attracting members of the opposite (or same) sex, whatever. For a significant minority their desire to "win" (where winning might mean a PR, not an outright win or podium) simply outweighs their desire to play fair. For those people, the only deterrent is getting caught. If there's minimal threat of getting caught (or the consequences of getting caught are relatively trivial) then they will cheat in life. They'll lie on their CVs, they'll cut the course, they'll engage in unethical business practices, they'll evade a few taxes when they think they can get away with it, they'll cheat on their spouses, they'll cut into queues, etc.

How many people do it? If you're talking about following every triathlon rule to the absolute letter, then I'd guess anything up to about half the people in any given race are guilty of doing something fairly low-level like not dropping back quickly enough when being passed. If you're talking about people who are more deliberately cheating e.g. drafting for extended periods of time, not just a few seconds after being passed, then I'd say it's more like 10-20%. Then there's the hard core who engage in cheating like course-cutting and doping - I'd put those levels fairly low, I'd like to think they're down at 5% or less but it probably depends on the race. I'd assume that Kona has the highest levels of AG dopers of any race for example.

You will never weed these people out of triathlon, any more than you will weed them out of business and every other walk of life. All you can do is try and catch them and make the punishment for getting caught high enough to deter all but the most hard-core cheats.
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Re: Cheating, how common and why? [TriMyBest] [ In reply to ]
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TriMyBest wrote:
Tom Demerly wrote:


...On the flip side, cheating in individual endurance sports likely does not affect you or I. We go to the local race to have a good race, beat our best time, etc. Someone may produce an illegitimate result to bolster their self esteem- it may even alter our relative race results- but not our performance. We still did what we did. We had a good race, and we raced with integrity. That makes us feel good. Another person's cheating doesn't diminish our performance, even if it diminishes our race result. They must live with the fact that they did not achieve a legitimate result. Some people can rationalize that, but it doesn't diminish our integrity- it only does theirs.


That assumes we're all intrinsically motivated. For those who are extrinsically motivated, cheaters do take away from them.

Tom's comment is outstanding regardless. I am both intrinsically and extrinsically motivated. I also know which is more important and posts like this keep me grounded.
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Re: Cheating, how common and why? [HuffNPuff] [ In reply to ]
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Well Kona qualifying is an extrinsic reward. And I know many people who compete in triathlon for more than just the intrinsic value.
Cheaters do take away from other competitors even in individual sports such as triathlon.
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