Cheating and immorality are highly researched phenomena, likely due to their great impact. However, little research has examined the real-time cognitive mechanisms that are involved in cheating and conflict management. Much of the cheating research to date concentrates on binary cheating; however, in more prevalent real-world scenarios, people often engage in more ambiguous self-serving mistakes. To execute such self-serving decisions, one may make use of conflict-management strategies to help balance an internal struggle between gain and self-concept. We propose that to enact such strategies one must employ sufficient cognitive resources. To test this, we employed a simple effortful control task that allows for comparisons of gain and no-gain errors, isolating self-serving mistakes while recording gaze and response-time measures. Findings revealed that individuals can make use of conflict management strategies that mimicked errors made inadvertently. Two strategies included gaze avert and quick response times during gain blocks, whereby participants simulated out-of-control-like behaviors while engaging in self-serving mistakes, plausibly as a method of self-justification. Strategy use was dependent upon individuals' cognitive abilities. Participants reporting high inhibitory control abilities were able to use gaze aversion to engage in self-serving mistakes, while those reporting high attention resources were able to employ faster response times when making more profitable errors. Taken together, this paper contributes to (1) the debate on whether honesty/dishonesty is the dominant response, (2) the debate on self-control and inhibition on cheating, and (3) the understudied area of cognitive justifications to maintain a positive self-concept.

作弊和不道德是高度研究的现象，可能是由于它们的巨大影响。然而，很少有研究检查涉及作弊和冲突管理的实时认知机制。迄今为止，大部分作弊研究都集中在二元作弊上。然而，在更普遍的现实世界场景中，人们经常会犯更模棱两可的自私错误。为了执行这种自私自利的决定，人们可以利用冲突管理策略来帮助平衡收益和自我概念之间的内部斗争。我们建议，要制定这样的策略，必须使用足够的认知资源。为了测试这一点，我们采用了一个简单而费力的控制任务，允许比较增益和无增益误差，在记录注视和响应时间测量的同时隔离自我服务错误。调查结果表明，个人可以利用模仿无意中犯下的错误的冲突管理策略。两种策略包括在增益块期间避免凝视和快速响应时间，参与者在犯自私错误的同时模拟失控的行为，这似乎是一种自我辩解的方法。策略的使用取决于个人的认知能力。报告高抑制控制能力的参与者能够使用注视厌恶来犯自私错误，而报告高注意力资源的参与者能够在犯更多有利可图的错误时采用更快的响应时间。总之，本文有助于（1）关于诚实/不诚实是否是主要反应的辩论，（2）关于自我控制和抑制作弊的辩论，