Traveling is of course an enrichment, but you can also acquire bad habits that remain once you get home. The prestigious Columbia University has indeed shown that the great adventurers tend to cheat more than others on a daily basis, and therefore to lie or even cheat on their partner! For their study explicitly titled "The dark side of going abroad", the researchers entrusted 215 students with a rather puzzling mission:to solve an anagram (the letters of a word, if inverted and permuted, form another word) 1 month before their departure for another country, another 6 months after their arrival and a third 12 months after their arrival. The results were as follows:30% of the students cheated on the first test, and some 47.7% cheated on the 2nd and 3rd tests. First conclusion:life abroad has developed vices and dishonesty in some people.
Second experiment:171 students were divided into 3 groups. The first group had to write about an experience they had at home, another about an experience that happened abroad, and the third group about their last visit to the supermarket. All then took a test in which they were given the opportunity to cheat, and those who told a story that had happened to them abroad were more likely to take their chance and cheat. In all, 8 different experiments confirmed that travelers were bigger cheats than others. How to explain this phenomenon ? According to scientists, this is simply due to the fact that traveling exposes you to many different moral and/or social codes.
“Over the past ten years, research has shown the benefits of traveling abroad. By contrast, this study warns against the general encouragement of foreign experiences, pointing to a darker side of living abroad, which includes increased immoral behavior,” the study concludes. Surprising! If Jules has spent time in Costa Rica, Australia or Thailand, you better keep an eye out!
