engleski

Personality traits predict attitude towards plagiarism of self and others in biomedicine

Aim. To measure attitude toward plagiarism and personality traits of biomedical scientists’ to determine which personality traits predict plagiarism. Participants and Methods. The survey study was conducted during years 2012 and 2013 among 177 scientists, 131 research fellows and 46 authors of an article submitted to Croatian Medical Journal (CMJ). Scientists fulfilled three questionnaires: The Attitude Towards Plagiarism, The Dark Triad D3-27 and The Social Desirability Scale. The questionnaires were available on-line through SurveyMonkeyTM web service. Results. The total attitude towards plagiarism was moderate (58±16), approval attitude was moderate (25±8), disapproval attitude was high (30±4) and subjective norm for plagiarism was moderate (21±5). The incidence of plagiarism has been estimated from 32% to 46%, self-plagiarism from 26% to 32%, and 2% of respondents admitted plagiarism. Significant predictors of plagiarism were psychopathy and Machiavellianism. Psychopathy predicts disapproval attitude (8.41%) and subjective norm (3.61%) toward plagiarism while Machiavellianism predicts approval attitude toward plagiarism (2.56%). Predictor variable of disapproval attitude was also the country of provenience (2.56%). Social desirable responding was high. Conclusions and implications. Propensity to plagiarism was moderate to low, but given the high social desirability, the tendency can be interpreted as moderate. Psychopathy and Machiavellianism were significant predictors of the attitude towards plagiarism. Plagiarism can be predicted in cases of a high degree of psychopathy, visible from low disapproval attitude, in case of high Machiavelism present in approval attitude and in case of high subjective norm based on lack of moral values and less incentive environment.

Attitude ; Ethics ; Personality traits ; Plagiarism ; Questionnaires ; Scientific Misconduct.

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