What do Schoolteachers and Sumo Wrestlers Have in common?
They both cheat.
- The possibility of promotion or higher pay, provokes teachers to inflate their
student's test scores. Whether through writing the answers to Standarized
tests on the whiteboard, exceeding the allotted time, or secretly changing the
student's answers afterwards, teachers now have as much incentive to cheat as
their students. - For example, in 1996 if a Chicago school's reading scores fell below a certain level, the school would close and staff would be "dismissed or reassigned" (Dubner). This impending threat provoked teachers to inflate their student's reading scores to keep the school open therefore solidifying their jobs. Reading scores from over 30,000 students, spanning three grades showed evidence of teacher tampering. In one grade a student's scores would be low, the next year significantly higher, and the final year lower again. The significant increase in test score in the middle year insinuates that the teacher tampered with the test scores because the child was performing at a surprisingly higher level of reading. This alone is a good sign, perhaps the student just became better at reading, however the drop back to the a lower score the following year insinuates that the student's reading abilities were never truly that much better, as their would be an upward trend in score instead of up then down. Further analysis of the entire Chicago Public School System experiment suggested at least 5% of teachers cheat (Levitt and Dubner).
- Sumo wrestlers on the other hand, purposely lose matches due to bribery and blackmail. While a few elite wrestlers earn high wages for their matches, the majority of the players earn low if minimum wages. They are much more susceptible to offers of money or violent threats than the elite because they have much more to lose. They need the money, and fear the pain of violent retaliation much more than the elite who can pay others to defend them.
- For example, the comparison between predicted and actual fight results showed a strong favoring towards wrestlers that were not predicted to win. In a tournament between two wrestler's who had both won seven matches each, the predicted outcomes were much more closer to the actual results as both wrestlers had less incentive to cheat. They were both in the same position, both needed the last match to advance in the tournament. Their was no incentive for losing. However, if a wrestler who had won seven matches and needed one more to advance fought a wrestler already guaranteed a spot in the next round regardless of the outcome of the current fight, the wrestler with the guaranteed spot has incentive to throw the match. He will be in the next round no matter what, so he's more susceptible to bribery by the fighter who needs the final victory. In cases like this where the 7-7 Wreslter's Predicted Win Percentage Against 9-5 Opponent was 47.2% where the Actual win Percentage was a whopping 73.4% cheating was much easier to infer (Dubner). There was such a tremendous difference between the predicted and actual results that economists assumed cheating. In anonymous interviews with two sumo wrestlers, it was admitted that threats by yakuza (Japanese mafia) and bribery was extremely prevalent in the Sumo world.
- Whether in a classroom, or a wrestling match, most people have some incentive to cheat. Whether changing answer bubbles to secure your job, or throwing matches for financial stability and safety just about everyone has their price. These two examples only support the economic principle that "Incentives are the cornerstone of modern life (Dubner)".