The study conducted by Columbia University researchers set out to uncover some of the downsides of travelling abroad. The research report, titled The Dark Side of Going Abroad, suggests that people who travel abroad are more likely to engage in immoral behaviour – or, as the study puts it, have “looser morals” – than those who don’t.
“The present research casts caution on the widespread approbation of foreign experiences and suggests that a dark side may lurk in these experiences. While foreign experiences empower people to break mental rules, they may also drive people to bend moral rules, thereby increasing their tendency to behave immorally,” the report states.
For the study, researchers conducted a three-phased longitudinal study, looking specifically at the likelihood of cheating behaviour before and after students studied abroad.
215 students were tasked with completing a test that involved four anagrams and were told that they could win a prize. They completed the first test a month before they began travelling. The test given to the students gave them the opportunity to cheat as it required them to say that they had filled out an anagram even if they hadn’t.
“Unbeknownst to the participants, the fourth anagram was always impossible to solve. Therefore, any participant who claimed to have solved more than the first three anagrams was coded as having cheated to increase their odds of winning an iPad,” the study explains.
The results found that in the first test, 30% of students cheated, and the number of cheating students increased to 47,1% in the second phase of the test and in the last phase 47,7% cheated.
Researchers did a series of other studies similar to the one outlined above, with people in different life-stages including high school students and middle-aged adults, and found similar results.
“As individuals are exposed to foreign cultures, they may come to appreciate that different cultures uphold different standards on the same moral issues and, consequently, to construe moral rules and principles as culturally relative rather than absolute,” the report said.
“While foreign experiences can elevate people to new heights of creativity, they can also pull people down into the depths of immorality. The person who has broad foreign experiences may be a more creative thinker, but not necessarily a more moral one.”
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