Setting goals and then missing them may make people more likely to cheat than if they hadn’t had any goals, especially if they missed them by just a little. This Wharton article, Goal setting and Cheating: Why They Often Go Together in the Workplace – Knowledge@Wharton, talks about several studies that relate goal setting to cheating and gives very tangeable, believable examples. It does end on a positive note with some suggestions for how to minimize cheating. For example, they suggest that the rewards should be graduated, so if selling one more car will win you a trip to Hawaii, there had better be a pretty good second prize or you’re likely to cheat on that last car.