Goals increase cheating behaviors

Analyzing goal setting without an ethical decision-making framework, researchers have found evidence that people who cannot meet specific and challenging goals are more likely to engage in unethical behavior than are people who do not have specific performance goals. Specific patterns that have emerged from the research show that subjects with goals are more likely to overstate results than subjects without goals. The closer people come to meet their challenging and specific goals, the more likely they are to engage in unethical behavior to attain their goals.

These findings are consistent with social cognitive theory, which asserts that people receive a psychological reward for achieving goals (Bandura, 2001). Goal setting alone can increase the value people get from overstating productivity and suggest that deception facilitates self-justification (Schweitzer, Ordóñez, & Douma, p. 429).