Lying, cheating, and stealing: A study of categorical misdeeds

Journal of Pragmatics 42 (2010) 1595–1605

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Lying, cheating, and stealing: A study of categorical misdeeds Jennifer Bloomquist * Gettysburg College, Africana Studies, 300 North Washington St, Gettysburg, PA 17325, United States

A R T I C L E I N F O

A B S T R A C T

Article history: Received 8 October 2008 Received in revised form 4 August 2009 Accepted 18 November 2009

The goal of this paper is to provide evidence that lie, steal, and cheat are the only concepts that share membership in a specialized semantic category which has a specific set of prototypical features that separates them from other kinds of misdeeds. Findings show that lie, cheat, and steal can be reduced to similar weighted semantic features and that in testing the relevance of these primitives, we find experimental results that reveal that lie, cheat, and steal have parallel prototype effects establishing the same kinds of gradient membership in all three concepts. It is this scalar membership that leads to the mismatch between speakers’ definitions of the concepts and their application of the categories to actual examples of lying, cheating, and stealing. The second purpose of this study is the development of category models that take into account the gradient membership and the variability of concept use as well as culturally inspired ideas about what lying, cheating, and stealing entail. The ultimate goal of this project is to discover the greater implications category structures by constructing a mega-model that only includes the concepts lying, cheating, and stealing and accounts for their exclusive membership in a larger concept field. ß 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Category structure Prototype theory Lexical semantics

1. Introduction Speakers of English have a number of ways to talk about many different kinds of theft that happen under a variety of circumstances (e.g., kleptomania, embezzlement, shoplifting, etc.), but have only one general definition of what it means to steal, which is ‘‘to take something that doesn’t belong to you.’’ The same can be said of cheating; for example, one can cheat at a game, cheat on a spouse, on an exam, on taxes, on a diet, project, etc., and cheat someone out of something. Like that for stealing, there is one common definition of cheating: ‘‘achieving some goal by breaking the rules,’’ which is applied across the board despite the fact that in the situations mentioned above, there are very distinctive kinds of cheating at unrelated activities. Most people know that in many cases, there is often more or less involved in stealing, but the working definition usually fits the situation, unless the taking is conditioned by certain factors. Likewise, with cheat, in certain cases rules can be broken without what most speakers would consider ‘‘actual cheating’’ taking place. In these instances, despite the fact that the action fits the technical definition, most speakers believe that an honest mistake (not ‘‘real’’ theft or cheating) has occurred. If this is the case, how can we account for the apparent discrepancy between the definition of terms and their applications? Coleman and Kay (1981) ask a similar question in reference to lie and point out that the definition of lie often does not fit speakers’ judgments as to what constitutes actual lying, as (similar to cheat and steal) there are several different kinds of lying such as white lies and sins of omission. In consideration of these ‘‘lesser lies,’’ Coleman and Kay argue that a traditional checklist approach (where category membership is contingent upon the fulfillment of certain necessary and sufficient semantic features) is an inadequate tool for explaining the gradient membership and conditional usage of the word lie. Since actual lying is not necessarily restricted to

* Tel.: +1 7173376745. E-mail address: [email protected]. 0378-2166/$ – see front matter ß 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2009.11.008

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saying something false, but is judged rather to be an utterance of more or less truth value, their solution is a prototype analysis based on specific featured components of lie which they manipulate in a number of scenarios designed to test the boundaries of the category lie. I propose that a similar evaluation can be done for cheat and steal which also have questionable semantic boundaries and which may be better represented by a prototype analysis than through the satisfaction of a feature checklist. As was found with lying, cheating and stealing are influenced by certain weighted factors such as belief of wrongdoing/ falsehood and intentionality. Just as there are exceptional instances of lying such as social lies and white lies which are considered by most people to be less central members of the category, there are similar conditions at work in instances of ‘‘lesser’’ cheating and stealing that yield parallel outcomes. In a prototype analysis, it is possible that lying, cheating, and stealing behave alike because they are subject to similar prototype patterning. Once the prototype is established in each case, it is likely that the three will further resemble one another when they are interpreted within the context of a cultural model. Although defining the factors which influence categories and establishing membership is a necessary starting point, we still need a more holistic explanation for the role a complex category like lie plays in everyday discourse. In an attempt to do just that, Sweetser (1987) uses Coleman and Kay’s findings as a basis for a folk model which outlines the cultural implications of lying against the backdrop of speakers’ expectations for the exchange of information. In her analysis, the prototype evaluation of lie is considered in respect to a model of communication which helps to explain not only what constitutes lying, but why some kinds of lies are more representative of the category lie than others. The goal of this paper is to provide evidence that lie, steal, and cheat are the central concepts in a specialized semantic category which has a specific set of prototypical features that separates them from other kinds of misdeeds. In support of this thesis, I will show that lie, cheat, and steal can be reduced to similar weighted semantic features and that in testing the relevance of these primitives, we find experimental results that reveal that lie, cheat, and steal have parallel prototype effects establishing the same kinds of gradient membership in all three concepts. One of the questions I will be addressing is whether it is this scalar membership that leads to the mismatch between speakers’ definitions of the concepts and their application of the categories to actual examples of lying, cheating, and stealing or if the answer lies elsewhere. The ultimate purpose of this project is to discover the greater implications category structures by constructing a megamodel that only includes the concepts lying, cheating, and stealing and accounts for their exclusive membership (along with their variations, such as fraud, where lying and cheating are employed in order to steal, for example) in a larger concept field of ‘‘dishonest acts.’’ The criteria for inclusion in the superordinate category will be based on the concepts’ common features, similar prototype effects, and specialized application among speakers. The larger concept will also be used to account for the grey areas where one concept overlaps with the next (e.g., theft by deception), resulting in some conclusions about the relationships among the individual concepts. In section 2 of this paper I will outline the shortcomings of classical checklist theory in undertaking the task at hand and then will explain the benefits of a prototype analysis for lie, cheat, and steal. Section 3 is devoted to a brief overview of the Coleman/Kay experimental findings for lie and includes the presentation of the current investigation into cheat and steal. Section 4 details the cultural model that Sweetser proposes for lie and the similar considerations that develop from my experimental results for cheat and steal. In section 5, I will discuss possible theoretical schemas that can account for the relationship between lying, cheating, and stealing and investigate the possibilities of a superordinate category that can account for the commonalities among the three concepts. 2. Theoretical models According to the checklist view of categorization, semantically complex words are defined via a set of necessary and sufficient criteria governing category membership (Fillmore, 1975, 2006), but a number of studies have found the traditional checklist approach lacking in accounting for membership in a range of concepts such as concrete nouns (Rosch, 1975), color terms (Kay and McDaniel, 1978), abstract concepts (Hampton, 1981; Labov, 1973), and some verbal categories (Verschueren, 1985). In much of this work, checklist theory has been shown to be ineffectual at two significant levels. The first problem stems from the fact that a checklist does not allow for partial membership in categories. This gives rise to the second difficulty which is that, according to checklist theory, there is no internal structure to categories. Mervis and Rosch (1981) noted that it is possible for categories to have better and worse members; the best are reflected in the category prototype and the worst, while still full-fledged members, are relegated to the category edges as less representative examples. Another fault with checklist theory is revealed by Putnam (1975) who points out that it is difficult to propose that there are necessary properties for anything since it is possible to have a list of features for any concept and then to be able to subtract some of those features and still have a category member. An abnormal member of a category, despite being atypical, still counts as a category member. Therefore, categories cannot be realistically defined by necessary and sufficient features. Instead, we have to rely (in part) on culturally agreed upon stereotypes to represent categories, and on characteristic features that define the most typical examples in order to make predictions concerning category membership. Unlike traditional checklist theory, in the prototype approach, category membership is not determined by the fulfillment of necessary and sufficient features, but on clusters of attributes that characterize the exemplars (Geeraerts, 2002). Thus, prototype theory allows for gradient membership via weighted features and goodness-of-fit standards. This means that some attributes are more important than others in determining membership, so if a membership candidate has just one heavily weighted, near essential characteristic, it may be a more central member than another with several less important elements. The best examples of the category (prototypes) are located at the center while less representative members are

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included at the periphery of the concept. This kind of gradient membership accounts for the wide range of variation we see in many categories, as well as for the uncertainty of concept boundaries. As Kay and McDaniel (1978) found with the categorization of color terms, the edges of categories are often fuzzy and variable.1 This is the kind of flexibility we would expect from categorization since, oftentimes, especially with abstract categories, entities can share membership in two or more categories (i.e., a lie can also be an act of cheating, such as on one’s income tax return). Prototype theory is designed to account for real world applications of words and to reflect world diversity which cannot be true of the classical checklist approach. Now let us consider the implications of prototype theory for categories like lie, cheat, and steal. According to prototype theories, a concept often contains finite set of characteristics, some of which are required to guarantee membership in the category. Any of the characteristics of lie, cheat, and steal may be represented, but not all of the features carry equal weight, so the presence or absence of just one may determine classification, regardless of other factors. However, since the prototype concept is not a consideration of yes or no, but one of more or less, and because lying, cheating, and stealing are judged to occur in degrees of severity, it is often the case that if more requirements are fulfilled, then an example could show the kinds of prototype effects that would predict its representative-ness according to the internal structure of the category. Frequently, definitions of lie are based on the utterance of a falsehood, which Kay and Coleman cite as inadequate since people often say things that are not true but are not lies either. If a speaker believes what he says is true even when it is not, his error is usually considered to be an honest mistake. The same holds true if one takes an item she believes is hers although it is not—she hasn’t stolen, it was an accident. Likewise, if one does not know or misunderstand the rules of a game, how can he break them and cheat? However, If a speaker believes what he has said is false, or if the possessor of and object thinks it belongs to someone else, or if a player suspects that she may be violating the rules of the games, a second qualifying element is added to the set membership. A third level in the determination of lying, cheating, or stealing is intent. If in uttering a falsehood, taking possession of an item, or circumventing a rule, the actor has harmful (or at the very least, non-beneficial) intent, yet another category requirement is fulfilled. Since the prototype is defined by the satisfaction of all the elements in the category, the prototypical lie is a false utterance which is intentionally deceptive; the prototype of steal is the possession of an object that is taken deliberately (and somewhat maliciously) to deprive someone else of that object; and to prototypically cheat is to be aware of a set of guidelines and to purposefully thwart those rules at the expense of others governed by that same set of relations. Although these first few basic features which were discovered to be important in analyzing the prototype requirements for lie are useful in the early stages of this investigation into cheat and steal, there are many more factors that influence our perceptions of whether an action is a central example, in the latter category especially. 3. Survey In an attempt to determine whether the semantic features that characterized cheat and steal were similar to those found with lie, a study similar to that undertaken by Coleman and Kay was conducted. The participants were 24 American English native speakers who were university students enrolled in a sophomore-level linguistics course at the State University of New York at Buffalo.2 Since Coleman and Kay’s experiment was fairly effective for testing the boundaries of lie, it was used as a model for cheat and steal. Based on the possible combinations of the presence or absence of the heretofore established prototypical category elements (knowledge, action, and intent), I composed eight instances of stealing and eight scenarios involving cheating. Each story employed different factor to satisfy the various requirements of category membership. By changing the components, I hoped to discover a pattern in cheat and steal that would correspond with the outcome of the lie study to reveal a common hierarchy of determinants among the three concepts. The features included in each scenario are shown in Table 1. Explanation of features: Action: x commits y through his own deliberate actions. (1) Uttering a falsehood; (2) taking an item that does not belong to him; (3) violating a rule. It is important to note that the action here must be willful on the part of the actor since this feature is what differentiates between instances of actions like finding and cases where the actor causes the possession of an item through his own purposeful actions, i.e., he deliberately takes something. It is worth mentioning that ‘‘action’’ here is precisely that—it does not involve any intention to participate in lying, cheating, or stealing. Knowledge: (1) x’s belief that the utterance is false; (2) that an item belongs someone else; (3) that a rule is broken and awareness of undeserved possession or victory. This feature may cause some confusion, especially in the stealing stories since it implies that the actor has some knowledge of wrongdoing. This is not necessarily the case since knowledge simply means that the actor is aware that the item in question does not belong to her. The motivating factor for this feature is clear in scenarios where the actor believes that an item is hers when in fact it belongs to someone else.

1 With the characterization of basic color terms, it is important to note that this is a slightly different kind of category determination criteria or factors that influence membership since judgments concerning colors rely on a combination of elements in the physical world, human physiology and perception, as well as certain cultural factors (Lakoff, 1987:56). 2 Although the students were recruited from a course where they were actively studying language issues, the survey was administered prior to any class discussion of semantic concepts.

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Table 1 Summary of features. A plus indicates that an element is present, minus if it is absent. Stealing

A B C D E F G H

Cheating

Action

Belief

Intent

+ + + +

+ +

+

+

+ +

+ +

I J K L M N O P

Action

Belief

Intent

+

+ +

+ +

+ +

+ + +

+

+

Intent: purpose, acting in such a way as to willfully bring about a certain result; premeditated. Although this understanding of intent can cover a broad range of possibilities, in general the application of the intent feature is restricted here to cases involving the actor’s consciousness of acting deliberately and, to a degree, unethically, in order to achieve a certain gain, possibly to the detriment of others. A. Calin is at the mall in her favorite store. She sees a pair of earrings that she has wanted for months but still can’t afford. When no one is looking, she puts the earrings in her pocket and walks out. B. Jonathan is house sitting for Bill who lives down the street. While he’s watering the plants, Jonathan notices that Bill has three copies of the Beatles’ White Album (Jonathan’s favorite). Jonathan figures that since there are three, Bill will never notice that one is missing and, since he has often heard bill say that he doesn’t like the Beatles anymore, he takes one home. C. Ardis has a pair of yellow socks and so does Rob. Ardis hasn’t seen her socks since the last time she was at Rob’s house. The next time she visits him, she finds Rob’s yellow socks. Since she doesn’t know that Rob has socks that are identical to her own, Ardis takes the ones she finds home. D. There is a five dollar bill on the floor of Tom and Ed’s room. Tom knows that he had five dollars that he left somewhere in the room but Ed always has money lying around too. The five on the floor may be Tom’s or Ed’s, but Tom takes it anyway because he thinks that Ed might have stolen money from him before. E. There is a necklace on the table in Diane’s room that she borrowed from Lisa. Betsy sees the necklace and figures that it belongs to Di. However, Betsy hates Diane and thinks that she doesn’t deserve such a nice necklace so she throws it in the trash can. F. Mosche left his rather unusual Mickey Mouse watch at the gym. The next day he finds a watch near his locker that looks just like the one he lost, so he’s pretty sure it’s his and takes it home. G. Reilly finds a wallet with 300$ and no identification in it. He asks around the neighborhood to make sure it doesn’t belong to one of his friends. When nothing turns up, he donates the money to the local animal shelter. H. Carter discovers a beautiful ring in the alley behind his house that could have been the one he lost years ago or may have belonged to a neighbor. There is no one around and Carter decides that if someone is stupid enough to lose this valuable ring, they don’t deserve to get it back, so he gives it to his daughter. I. Nicole and Trish are playing cards. By accident, Nicole shows Trish one of her cards without knowing it. Trish, losing up until that point, changes her strategy to one that will beat Nicole’s card and wins the game. J. Kim and Eric are playing a computer game. Kim accidentally presses a key that reveals a glitch in the game and annihilates Eric’s character so that Kim wins. K. Mr. and Mrs. Robbins own a consulting firm. The IRS allows them to claim business dinners as tax deductions, so they record every dinner they have at a restaurant together even if they don’t do any work or see any clients. L. Rick is playing football with his friends. Before he arrives, the rest of the group decides that this time, it’s okay to kick each other in the head during a tackle. Since he gets there late, Rick thinks the game is still being played according to the old nokick rules, but he kicks Mike in the head anyway during the game winning tackle and hopes that no one will notice. M. Sue and Malcolm have been going out for a long time, but they have recently decided that it is okay to see each other and other people as well. However, Sue isn’t sure that she likes the idea of Malcolm seeing other girls, so she takes a date to the movie theater where Malcolm works hoping that he’ll get jealous and regret the plan to date other people. N. Melanie and Nate have recently stated dating. Since neither has made a serious commitment, Melanie thinks that it’s okay to see other guys even if she doesn’t tell Nate about it. O. During the final exam, Tim sneaks a peek at Keisha’s paper just to check and make sure that he has the right answers. All of his answers are the same as hers except for one, but Tim is confident that his answer is the right one so he doesn’t change anything. Here a brief discussion of the stories is in order. Stories A and I (with every possible element present) translate informally into the prototype description outlined above in section 2. Stories F and N (with every possible element absent) were designed as test examples in order to establish a norm among the participants. With these stories, we would expect a near perfect score of clearly stealing/cheating and clearly not stealing/cheating respectively.

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Table 2 Method for scoring responses. Cheating/stealing

Can’t tell

Agree

Disagree

Not sure

7

6

5

4

Not cheating/stealing Not sure

Disagree

Agree

3

2

1

Table 3 Summary of responses. Story

Total

Mean (total/24)

Stealing A (+++) B (++ ) C (+ ) D (+ +) E ( ++) F( ) G( + ) H( +)

168 164 93 92 48 37 67 90

7.0 6.8 3.9 3.8 2.0 1.5 2.8 3.6

Cheating I (+++) J (+ +) K (+ ) L ( ++) M( + ) N( +) O( ) P (++ )

157 104 73 146 130 100 47 119

6.5 4.3 3.0 6.1 5.4 4.2 1.9 4.9

Stories C and K are examples of what most people would call an honest mistake; the injurious act was committed, but without belief or harmful intent on the actor’s part. In stories G and M, only the belief element is present, i.e., knowledge that the item belongs to someone else, which does not necessarily entail knowledge of wrongdoing. Stories B and O are alike in that they contain the first two elements (action and belief) but lack intent since none of the characters mean for their actions to cause any damage. Story D describes a situation where a character acts and harbors ill intent (elements 1 and 2) but lacks belief of possession by someone else (element 3), which is also true of the story involving Ed, Tom, and the five dollar bill. In stories E and M, the characters know what they are doing and mean to do it (elements 2 and 3) but in fact, are not really doing anything (lacking element 1). Finally, in scenarios H and O, there is no deliberate action or belief of wrong doing but there is the intention to misbehave, which satisfies element 3.3 3.1. Results and discussion As the study was modeled after the Kay and Coleman experiment, their method of scoring responses was used as well. Participants were given the following instructions: in the following stories, please indicate whether or not each is an example of cheating or stealing. After you have done that, decide if most people would agree with your answer.4 For example: Calin is at the mall in her favorite store. She sees a pair of earrings that she has wanted for months but still can’t afford. When no one is looking, she puts the earrings in her pocket and walks out. Does Calin steal?

The method used for scoring the responses is summarized in Table 2. The range of possible total scores per story is from 168 to 24, which is calculated by the number of participants (24), multiplied by the value of the response (7-1). For example, if all 24 participants determined that a story is an example of cheating or stealing and thought that most people would agree with their judgment (a 7 on the scale), the result would be 168. This two layered method of scoring was designed to test both individual judgments and the participants’ ideas about the

3 While care was taken to include every possible combination of the elements in each story, nonetheless, it has been pointed out that there remains a level of inconsistency in the manipulation of the features in some of the stories. Notably, while the claim is that ‘‘action’’ is intended to be absent in certain stories, in every stealing story, some action still takes place (even if it is inadvertent, as in F), but in the Coleman and Kay study, the non-lie scenario clearly excluded all of the ‘‘lie’’ features. Admittedly, this is an important shortcoming of the current undertaking, but despite that fact, the results still yield important insight into the construction of the categories. 4 The participants were invited to explain their responses but none did; this, unfortunately, calls into question whether they read the stories exactly as intended.

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Fig. 1. Degree to which participants collectively considered a story to include an instance of cheating.

Fig. 2. Degree to which participants collectively considered a story to include an instance of stealing.

ethical codes of society since the two do not always mesh. The total score was added for each story and the mean was then calculated by dividing the total by the number of participants. These results are presented in Table 3. The mean score for each story indicates the degree to which those surveyed collectively considered it to be an instance of cheating or stealing. These results can be plotted on a gradient scale ranging from not cheating/stealing to cheating/stealing, as shown in Figs. 1 and 2. While the stories containing all of the prototype elements rank the highest and those containing none of the elements rank the lowest, membership of those with fewer components is hierarchical. With the exception of a few stories, the entries with two features outrank those with only one. These results support the general prototype hypothesis which predicts that when one story shares all of the prototype elements of another story plus one (or several) more, the first story will earn an equal or higher score than the second. In most of the examples for cheating or stealing, this is exactly what we find when we evaluate sets of the experimental stories. In the stealing part of the questionnaire, we find that the comparison of pairs of stories yields such results (presented for stealing in Table 4, cheating in Table 5). Here what we are considering are the differences between the scores given to the stories in the first column (I) compared to those in the third (column III). The second and fourth columns (II and IV) correspond to the prototype elements what are in columns I and III respectively. The examples are set up so that the stories in column I always have at least on more prototype element than the stories in column III. The fifth column shows the total number of respondents that gave the story in column I a higher or equal score to the one that that they gave to the story in column III (for example, everyone who participated scored story A higher than story D). Column VI is the proportion of participants who scored the column I story higher than they scored the column III story, and the statistical significance of these proportions is presented in the last column. If higher scores correspond to the number of prototype elements, no matter which ones are represented, we have evidence in favor of the prototype hypothesis. Table 4 Steal. I Story

Prototype elements in I

II Story

Prototype elements in II

Number of participants giving equal or higher score to story in I

Preceding number as a proportion of 24

Significant at .01 level?

A A A A A A A D D D E E E B B B H C G

+++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ + + + + + + ++ ++ ++ ++ ++ ++ + + +

D E B H C G F H C F H G F C G F F F F

+ + ++ ++ + + +

24 24 24 24 24 24 24 16 13 24 9 12 24 23 23 24 24 24 24

1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 .67 .54 1.00 .38 .50 1.00 .96 .96 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00

Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

+ + + + + +

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Table 5 Cheat. I Story

Prototype elements in I

II Story

Prototype elements in II

Number of participants giving equal or higher score to story in I

Preceding number as a proportion of 24

Significant at .01 level?

L L L L L L L J J J L L L P P P N K M

+++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ + + + + + + ++ ++ ++ ++ ++ ++ + + +

J L P N K M O N K O N M O K M O O O O

+ + ++ ++ + + +

20 22 22 23 21 22 22 20 22 22 15 16 22 19 12 22 22 21 22

.83 .92 .92 .96 .88 .92 .92 .83 .92 .92 .63 .67 .92 .79 .50 .92 .92 .88 .92

Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

+ + + + + +

Table 6 Feature ranking for steal. B(+a+k i) outscores E ( a+k+i) implies 1 outranks 2 D(+a k+i) outscores E( a+k+i) implies 1 outranks 3 B(+a+k i) outscores D(+a k+i) implies 2 outranks 3

C(+a k i) outscores G( a+k i) implies 1 outranks 2 C(+a k i) outscores H( a k+i) implies 1 outranks 3 H( a k+i) outscores G( a+k i) implies 3 outranks 2

1 = (a) action, 2 = (k) knowledge, 3 = (i) intent.

With the exception of one comparison (E and H), the story that had every feature that the other did, plus one more feature, was scored higher by the majority of the 24 participants. Once again, as has been demonstrated with both lie and steal, the results of the cheat survey show that in story by story comparisons, the story with every feature +1 was scored higher by the majority of the participants. Up to this point the study has yielded results similar to those found in the lie study; it has been established that he data supports the general prototype hypothesis and the prototype theory proposed here for cheat and steal and furthermore have discovered that when the experimental stories differ by the satisfaction of only one feature, the story with the additional feature receives a higher score. The next step is to determine whether the prototype features established for cheat and steal can be ranked according to their importance in defining the category as was found with lie. This necessitates a comparison of the contrasting scores given to stories that only share one element. If all of the pairs yield the same pattern of results, we can assume that the features can be ranked hierarchically. For instance, stories B and E both have the feature +belief; however, story B also has the features +action and intent while story E has action, +intent. B received a mean score of 6.8 and E was given a mean score of 2.0. The comparison of these two suggests that the feature +action is more essential to the development of the prototype fore steal than the feature +intent. The rest of the comparisons for steal are presented in Table 6. From the data presented in Table 6, we can see that there is a problem in ranking the features knowledge (2) and intent (3). On one side of the equation, the scores for stories having feature 2 but not 3 (B and D) show that there is evidence for ordering feature 2 first, but on the other hand, the comparison between stories H and G support an ordering of feature 3 over 2. To resolve this dilemma, we will consider the other three stories containing the feature pattern ++ , stories I, J, and K. Band K (+a+k+ i) both outscore D (+a k+i), which implies that feature 2 outranks feature 3, but then D outscores I and J (+a+k i), suggesting that feature 3 outranks feature 2. Since D only just outscores J (3.8–3.7), which may prove to be insignificant, with a greater number of responses, it is possible that J would have earned a higher rating. With this in mind, the ranking of features from the most to least important in the development of the category prototype for steal is 1 > 2 >  3 or action > belief  intent. Action always outranks the other two features so it is the most important feature taken into account in category judgment, but belief and intent carry almost equal weight, although there is evidence that belief might be taken into account slightly more frequently than intent. This is where we see the prototype elements for steal begin to diverge from those for lie as Coleman and Kay found the unique ordering in their study to be 2 > 3 > 1, or belief > intent > action.5 The results for cheat, presented in Table 7, prove to be somewhat more cooperative. Here the ordering of features from most to least importance is 2 > 3 > 1 (belief > intent > action), mirroring the results for lie. In the higher scoring stories in the stealing category, action is the most important element, but with the case of 5 What has been defined here as action corresponds to the Coleman/Kay feature ‘‘false in fact.’’ Since their work deals with speech acts and the current undertaking is concerned with physical acts, this is the closest approximation for comparison.

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Table 7 Feature ranking for cheat. L( a+k+i) outscores P(+a+k i) implies 3 outranks 1 P (+a+k i) outscores J(+a k+i) implies 2 outranks 1 L( a+k+i) outscores J(+a k+i) implies 2 outranks 3

L( a+k+i) outscores K(+a k i) implies 3 outranks 1 M( a+k i) outscores K(+a k i) implies 2 outranks 1 M( a+k i) outscores L( a+k+i) implies 2 outranks

cheating, belief that one is breaking the rules weighs more heavily. In light of this comparison of the results, it is possible that the difference in the ordering of the elements speakers rely on to determine category membership hinges on the working definition of steal. Since property and the concept of ownership are involved, unauthorized possession was a significant determining factor. In the case with cheating and lying, the belief of wrongdoing was more important to those surveyed because both involve the violation of good faith in understood guidelines. Since cheat and lie have both been shown to have definitions that involve prototypes where several elements contribute to their meanings and because they share the same important determining factor, it is natural to group them into the same category. Although the ordering of defining features differs slightly, steal still demonstrates some degree of semantic similarity to lie and cheat since all three, in prototypical situations, involve actions that are deliberate and inherently dishonest. The understanding of ‘‘dishonest’’ is one based on culturally determined ideas of morality and ethics, and is even defined by one source as follows: honest: not lying, cheating, or stealing; fair and upright, truthful dishonest: not honest; lying cheating, and stealing are the dishonest acts of dishonest people (World Book Dictionary, italics mine) The results of the study reported here support the construction of a superordinate category, such as ‘‘dishonest acts,’’ of which lie, cheat, and steal are all members. Lying, cheating, and stealing can be characterized by the proposed features and ‘‘behave’’ alike in their prototype effects even though different elements are more important than others comparatively. And like lying, judgments concerning whether or not an act is an instance of cheating or stealing show that speakers are sensitive to these criteria and do not rely simply on a definition when evaluating which examples constitute representative category members. In her discussion on the usage of lie, Sweetser suggests a simplified prototypical speech act world and establishes the ‘‘norm’’ for information exchange via Grice’s conversational maxims and Searle’s felicity conditions. Speakers are aware of the cooperative guidelines and informational discourse is carried out accordingly. Furthermore, interlocutors typically believe that what they are saying is true so every time they engage in an exchange of information they are telling the truth; the cultural model is in place for both the speaker and the hearer. In the typical cooperative exchange model that Sweetser proposes, any of the elements entails the others, providing an elegant solution which includes not only an uncomplicated explanation of the interlocking constituents of clear cut cases of lying but also accounts for the examples whose category inclusion or exclusion is somewhat less obvious. In order to account for variations of non-truth-telling such as tall tales and fantasy, Sweetser suggests that in the cultural model which encompasses all modes of discourse, there is a branch that is outside of the prototypical speech act world. Since this offshoot has literary license and refers to exchanges that are not always meant to be informative, the truth values of an utterance is not relevant. White lies and social lies, although contained in the model of information exchange, are treated differently than other lies because they are committed under special circumstances. For instance, in a social situation, politeness conditions override the truthfulness constraints, especially since social lies are meant to be helpful and flattering, not harmful. Even though her model does not explicitly predict that white and social lies are subject to different category criteria, Sweetser notes that they appear less rigid members of the category since they are affected by different social actions than regular lying. In Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things, Lakoff points out that a social lie is not the product of a conjunction of the concepts socializing and lying. Instead, he suggests that there is a separate idealized cognitive model (ICM) for social lie which shares some of the elements of lying but is also significantly different since truth value is no longer more important than politeness constraints. With cheating, we find that the concept applies only under the limited conditions of rule governed activities. When we play a game, enter a contest or take a test, we assume there are guidelines through which the activity is structured. Furthermore, we agree via our willing participation to abide by these rules and expect that our opponents do the same. Once we agree to follow the rules, most people believe that, luck and overwhelming skill aside, they have as good a chance as any of their opponents have of winning. In fact, we often believe that if we follow the rules, we deserve to win and that winning is definitely beneficial. Finally, if a player wins by intentionally breaking the rules to which everyone is subjected, there is a sense of outrage because that person had an unfair advantage of playing under fewer restrictions, making it impossible for any of the rule-following players to win since having an unsporting edge keeps other players from having an equal chance of winning. The expectation for following the rules in life also ties into considerations involved in lying since in a model of communication, although there is no contest or game at stake, following the rules means telling the truth and non-compliance with truth ‘‘rules’’ can result in lying. If we approach lie from this standpoint, we could argue that non-truth-telling is in fact cheating at information exchange. With this we can make an attempt at constructing our model of fair play in the world of rule governed activities: the expectation is that if you follow the rules, everyone has an equal chance at winning. Winning is by no means an essential part

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of fair play, but the point of every competition is to win and in the prototypical cases, the participants are there to be victorious. However, everyone is aware that you can lose by playing according to the rules just as easily as you can lose while cheating. Although the model does not hold true in real life, especially since we play by the rules and lose all of the time, it helps to explain both the typical and marginal members of the category. For example, when there are established rules of which someone is unaware and does not follow, we do not really have a case of cheating because the connection between accepting the rules and playing is not made. There is also the instance of knowing the rules and unintentionally breaking them, an accident where there is no correlation between knowledge and intent. However, most people would decide that a case where someone misunderstood the rules and tried to break them as he perceived them would be cheating, as we can infer that the connection between the action and intent is fairly strong. A challenge to the model is cheating in the domain of marriage. For some people, it is a stretch to compare marriage to a competitive sport which may pose challenges to including infidelity in the fair play model. Nonetheless, if we look at the concept of cheating on a spouse in the same way Lakoff suggests consider social lies where the two categories overlap, we find an answer. Marriage does, in fact, behave in the same way as competitive activities by measuring a level of success. You don’t ‘‘win’’ at marriage and there are no opponents, but an idealized marriage is like a good sport—it attains its goal without cheating. When two people agree to wed, they make promises to one another by taking vows which, analogous to the rules of games, establish the guidelines for the conduct of the participants for the duration of the activity. An open marriage has no restrictions regarding the behavior of the ‘‘players’’ so there is no opportunity for cheating. The same is true of a noncommitted, unmarried relationship where the rules have not been established so the individuals may or may not expect fidelity from one another.6 The model of fair play also explains what we would expect to be more marginal (or forgivable) examples of cheating such as cutting corners when following a recipe or sneaking ice cream while on a diet. Both situations are unlike competitions in that again there are typically no opponents and you don’t technically win anything, but in each case there are at least implicit guidelines which, when followed correctly, are designed to yield a measure of success. That is why we say that we cheated when we fail to adhere to the rules of these activities. Even thought they are not official and it is doubtful that anyone would even notice if they were not followed to the letter, these guidelines shape the way in which the thing is supposed to be done. As was argued with lie and cheat, steal’s prototype analysis includes elements of intent, knowledge, and action. A core instance of the category is one where an actor takes possession of something that he knows is not his in an attempt to deprive the real owner. Unlike in lie and cheat, however, the action factor is the most significant in judgments of whether or not an action qualifies as stealing. In order to build a folk model that can account for a variety of instances of stealing, we must establish in what realm theft functions. Since the basis of the concept is possession, we will begin by evaluating our expectations for ownership (and we will assume that ownership is beneficial). First things are possessed, which includes both concrete entities as well as many abstract ones such as ideas or techniques. If this is the case, even with the statement of our first premise we run into some interesting questions. Consider the following: although according to most people, adult human beings are not available for possessing; children do count as possessions in many cultures, so kidnapping is considered to be stealing when a child is involved but not when the victim is an adult. This could be a reflection of our ideas involving creativity—if you propose a theory or write an article, it belongs to you; children can be viewed the in the same way since parents are responsible for the child’s very existence, and there is the assumption that until a certain age, adults are accountable for their children. While investigating this factor was not one of the original goals of the current undertaking, anecdotal evidence suggests that most people believe it is worse to steal from one person than from a huge corporation. A possible result of this individual versus conglomerate consideration is that there is a renewed focus on the harm done to the victim of the theft. That is, an individual is more vulnerable than a corporation and therefore would sustain greater injury. There is also evidence of an element of deservedness: it is worse to steal from certain people because they are entitled to what they have. Consider the differences between stealing from a little old lady and stealing from a ruthless drug dealer. Although each case may include all three prototype elements (and so are clearly instances of theft), the first could be considered more likely to be a core category member than the second. Another facet of the deservedness principle is that is someone works hard for everything she has, she has a right to ownership. An instance of stealing might not be a representative case if the item has previously been stolen from someone else because ownership is not sacred if not achieved in the expected way (as in the stories with Carter and the ring, Tom and Ed and the five dollars). This simplified model of ownership where things are owned by people who deserve them can account for most situations, some scenarios, such as in instances where there is no concept of individual ownership (as in a communal society) or cases where an item is found and there is no apparent previous owner, are completely outside of our world of ownership. Cases where the fundamental feature of ownership is missing are irrelevant to the model. Consider also the model’s implications where a shopper in a grocery store eats a grape before deciding whether or not to buy a bunch. Like the Coleman and Kay example of an error in the tens column versus an error in the millions column of a population census cited by Sweetser, there is a difference between eating one grape and devouring the entire cookie aisle; our judgment of how much is and is not stealing here depends on the extent to which the cultural 6 Here the application of the ICM of rule following applies only imperfectly for a number of reasons. Because of this, it has been suggested that cheating could possibly be a radial category, in which case, some applications may belong to different readings of the word.

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considerations are in effect.7 Since differences in value are likely to influence speakers’ determinations of theft, we can predict that there is a correlation between increased value and increased application of the cultural model; i.e., all else being equal, when the value is higher, cultural constraints are in stronger effect than in low value scenarios. Recall that in the earlier discussion of typical versus prototypical features it was determined that a scalar feature value should not be considered a necessary element of the prototype of steal since it is not essential to the meaning of the concept. This is not to say however that the feature does not have a role to play in certain cultural considerations of category membership. What the model specifically does not account for are cases involving commercial exchange where possession changes from one individual to another. If a cashier gives back too much change or if he undercharges a customer for an item and she neglects to point out the error, is she stealing? What about in cases of price gouging, usury, or ticket scalping where a consumer is grossly overcharged for her purchases? In instances like these, we need to examine the overlap between the boundaries for cheat and steal an either add another level to our existing model of ownership, build an additional dimension into the fair play model adapted to rules of fair commercial exchange, or create an entirely new model specifically designed for commercial exchange. All three take into account our expectation that there is an even transaction of money for goods or services. When commercial exchange intersects with the model that has been suggested for ownership, a shared element is the deservedness principle since the seller/primary owner of an item is entitled to a fair price for his goods just as the buyer/ secondary owner deserves items worth the money. ‘‘Fair’’ and ‘‘worth’’ are relative terms since what some people would call a rip-off, others would consider a bargain, which lends support to the proposition that the model is culturally based. When commercial exchange is handled by the model proposed for cheating there is a there is a situation where the rules governing fair exchange are in effect so the expectation is that all involved will follow those rules; when either the buyer or the seller breaks a rule by paying too little or by charging too much, cheating takes place. 4. The nature of the categories lie, cheat, and steal and their relationship to one another After examining the prototype effects of lying, cheating, and stealing and suggesting some ways in which to formulate cultural models which explain the discrepancies between experimental findings and real world opinions, we can see that there is considerable evidence that the concepts behave alike. While the models do not capture reprehensibility of motive or allow for dishonesty (which seems to be a central feature in all three concepts), they do lay the groundwork for future considerations. The difficult task of explaining specific details like why some people might say that prototypical stealing is dishonest but that robbing a bank is not may be solved by introducing an overlap of the concepts dishonesty or deception and lying, cheating, and stealing. Sweetser points out that lying is a subclass of deception, so perhaps the same holds true for the other concepts. A possible illustration of the overlap of lying, cheating, and stealing (and only these three concepts) is thought the development of a schema involving a superordinate category, such as ‘‘dishonest (or dishonorable) acts,’’ and the sub-groupings lie, cheat, and steal which might look like the following. Fig. 3 allows not only for the typical situations where an important element of the concept definition is dishonesty, but also for the instances where the action in question lacks the dishonesty component yet still would be included a s a near central member of the lying/cheating/stealing category. One of the difficulties here is that the prototype feature ‘‘intent’’ is strongly influenced by dishonorable motivations which, in turn, add a coloring of dishonesty to actions that may be unethical but not necessarily dishonest. Aside from showing how lie, cheat, and steal might factor into a higher level category, Fig. 2 also illustrates the three categories’ relationships to one another. As we have seen, lie and steal overlap significantly with the category cheat, but only minimally with each other. In the intersection between cheat and steal, we find examples that include commercial exchange and cheating someone out of something; in the lie/cheat overlap are the instances of cheating where deception is essential to breaking the rules. There is a slight overlap of all three concepts with fraud which incorporates elements from each: lying and cheating in order to steal. Developing a diagram of overlapping concepts situated within the boundaries of a larger category is akin to what we accomplished when we isolated the prototypes—both exercises, although good starting points, are flat representations that still need a more comprehensive explanation in order to establish their connections to one another in usage. Much like Sweetser’s model of communication and the parallel models of property and fair play suggested in this paper, here I posit a mega-model that seeks to account for all of the issues discussed thus far. Above all, we must suppose that there is a very broad concept of behavior, a code of conduct that members of a given society understand and accept. In the case of English speakers, this concept takes on a do-unto-other ethos which we will assume is embodied in a general rule of fairness, we expect, in everything we do, to be treated fairly, honorably, and to treat others in kind, taking ‘‘help o harm’’ to its fullest extent, all of which means that the default is to follow the rules of society. In consideration of a mega-model of fairness, we can see that it is not necessary to restrict our understanding of lying to communication, cheating according to fair play, or stealing with respect to possession; if there is one general maxim of fairness, each concept is accounted for within its own specified parameters. Lying is a violation of fairness when, during communication, the truth is withheld. Similarly, cheating is unfair conduct during specific rule governed activities and stealing occurs in situations of unfair possession. It is this notion 7 This example, however, intentionally excludes the middle for purposes of contrast. It has also been brought to my attention that a person can taste a grape before deciding to buy a bunch but cannot open a pack of Tic-Tacs to sample one, even though Tic-Tacs are individually smaller than grapes. Perhaps this is less a consideration of size (or worth), and more one of cultural assumptions regarding what counts as ‘‘free goods’’.

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Fig. 3. ‘‘Dishonest (or dishonorable) acts,’’ and the overlap between sub-groupings lie, cheat, and steal.

of fairness that at once includes lying, cheating, and stealing and also excludes other misdeed s such as rape or murder. For instance, consider the difference between ‘‘cheating is unfair’’ and ‘‘murder is unfair.’’ While the first is commonplace, the second is semantically odd since acts like homicide are not usually defined in respect to considerations of fairness. Also, in these terms, we can assume a metaphorical extension of cheating and stealing as in ‘‘she was cheated out of her innocence’’ or ‘‘he was robbed of life.’’ 5. Conclusion In this paper, I have argued for the formulation of a superordinate category that includes lie, cheat, and steal (as well as their variations, such as perjury, shoplifting, etc.) as its central members. Based on the similarities between weighted semantic features, prototype effect, and cultural considerations of each concept, we have seen that lie, cheat, and steal are uniquely characterized by differences in their common definitions and their applications in actual situations. Furthermore, experimental findings suggest that these three concepts are so closely associated that they overlap in several instances with each other but no with other misdeeds which supports the hypothesis that the concepts are connected through a number of common elements. Although there are other considerations at issue here, the evidence that has been presented supports a unified cultural model which challenges the idea that lie, cheat, and steal should be treated as separate kinds of transgressions and instead treats all three as different violations of one code of behavior. References Coleman, L., Kay, P., 1981. Prototype semantics: the English word lie. Language 57 (1), 26–44. Fillmore, C., 2006. Frame semantics. In: Dirk Geeraerts (ed). Cognitive Linguistics: Basic Readings. Mouton DeGruyter, pp. 379–382. Fillmore, C., 1975. An alternative to checklist theories of meaning. In: Papers from the First Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society. pp. 123–132. Geeraerts, D., 2002. Prototype theory: prospects and problems of prototype theory. In: Dirk Geeraerts (ed). Cognitive Linguistics: Basic Readings. Mouton DeGruyter, pp. 142–165. Hampton, J.A., 1981. An investigation of the nature of abstract concepts. Memory and Cognition 9 (2), 149–156. Kay, P., McDaniel, C., 1978. The linguistic significance of the meanings of color terms. Language 54, 610–646. Labov, W., 1973. The boundaries of words and their meanings. In: Bailey, C.J., Shuy, R. (Eds.), New ways of analyzing variation in English. Georgetown Univ. Press, Washington, D.C., pp. 340–373. Lakoff, G., 1987. Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things. Mervis, C.B., Rosch, E., 1981. Categorization of natural objects. In: M.R. Rosenzweig, L.W. Porter (eds.), Annual Review of Psychology, 32. Putnam, H., 1975. Mind Language and Reality. Cambridge University Press, New York. Sweetser, E., 1987. The definition of lie: an examination of the folk models underlying a semantic prototype. In: Holland, Quinn, (Eds.), Cultural Models in Language and Thought. Cambridge University Press, New York, pp. 499–510. Rosch, E., 1975. Cognitive representations of semantic categories. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 104 (3), 192–233. Verschueren, J., 1985. What People Say They Do with Words. The Hague, Mouton.