The effects of personality traits and attitudes towards the rule on academic dishonesty among university students

Academic dishonesty is becoming a big concern for the education systems worldwide. Despite much research on the factors associated with academic dishonesty and the methods to alleviate it, it remains a common problem at the university level. In the current study, we conducted a survey to link personality traits (using the HEXACO model) and people’s general attitudes towards the rule (i.e., “rule conditionality” and “perceived obligation to obey the law/rule”) to academic dishonesty among 370 university students. Using correlational analysis and structural equation modeling, the results indicated that both personality traits and attitudes towards the rule significantly predicted academic misconduct. The findings have important implications for researchers and university educators in dealing with academic misconduct.