The strategy of creating confusion and doubt about product safety, often called the "tobacco playbook" after the industry that used it so successfully, has become standard operating procedure among many corporations across a wide range of industries. The "tobacco playbook" has been widely applied, generally with great…

When considering a paradigm shift in higher education, it is imperative to focus on removing obstacles against maintaining integrity in academia. One such obstacle is contract cheating sites that have mushroomed disproportionately during the 18 months of emergency distance learning threatening graduate quality and university reputations (McKie,…

The propensity to cheat is intrinsic to every kind of education or training that requires effort and commitment. Academic dishonesty is a significant issue among secondary and postsecondary students worldwide. The majority of students have been involved in at least one kind of academic dishonesty in the preceding academic year. The fraud triangle…

Industry-funded research can prevent academic freedom from thriving at universities. It can also lead to misleading research that harms consumers. This book chapter focuses on how corporations sometimes use methods that contribute to the corruption of science and includes descriptions of several cases that occurred at universities. Some of the…

The current study examined whether age and parental reports of children's problematic lying, behavioural inhibition system (BIS) activity, and reward responsiveness predicted children's antisocial lie-telling. Children from mostly middle and upper-class Canadian families (ages 3-12, M = 6.23, SD = 2.52) participated in a modified Temptation…

The putative confession (PC) instructions ("[suspect] told me everything that happened and wants you to tell the truth") increases children's honesty. However, research has shown that children who maintain secrecy despite the PC are more convincing. We examined whether (a) the PC undermines adults' deception detection abilities or (b)…

Socio-emotional abilities have been proposed as an extension to models of intelligence, but earlier measurement approaches have either not fulfilled criteria of ability measurement or have covered only predominantly receptive abilities. We argue that faking ability--the ability to adjust responses on questionnaires to present oneself in a desired…

Constructive changes in the practice of investigative interviewing have emerged as a direct result of an unprecedented and robust collaboration between behavioral science researchers and professionals in the field. At the same time, an ever-increasing number of experienced practitioners have shown a willingness to adopt science-based methods in…

Misinformation around scientific issues is rampant on social media platforms, raising concerns among educators and science communicators. A variety of approaches have been explored to confront this growing threat to science literacy. For example, refutations have been used both proactively as warning labels and in attempts to inoculate against…

This essay uses a fictional narrative to explore the phenomenon of Pretendians in the contemporary university. Summer, who is one of the protagonists in the fictional dialogue, self-identifies as Indigenous, and is hired as an academic based on this identity, and according to affirmative action policies. Whilst working as an Indigenous academic…

Purposefully publishing a fraudulent scholarly paper is considered research misconduct and never tolerated in academia. True scholars work hard to create and publish work in legitimate ways. However, fraudulent publishers--companies that solicit and quickly publish research papers without review or quality assurances that evaluate, judge, and…

Background/purpose: The authors of this research present a study on Fake News and the communication processes that are generated in different educational and professional contexts through a systematic review. Materials/methods: This is descriptive research that analyses 139 results present in Web of Science and SCOPUS, using the criteria…

Integrating the understanding of digital threats into informatics education is crucial for preparing pupils to navigate the complexities of the digital world. This study provides foundational insights for embedding digital safety competencies within informatics curricula by prioritizing key threats faced by young people. Through data collected…

The paper emanates from the inaugural lecture that I presented on the 22nd of November 2022 at the University of South Africa. It is well known that "The Zondo Commission" revealed numerous crises with principled leadership poisoning organisations in South Africa. The world is becoming more conscious of ethics and ethical leadership…

We investigated how voluntary confessions, coerced-compliant confessions, and no-confessions influenced guilt assessments in combination with other exculpatory or ambiguous evidence. In three experiments (total N = 808), participants studied case information and provided guilt assessments. As expected, in Experiment 1 and 2a, (i) voluntary…