<p>Academic ethics are the moral standards or ethical rules by which the academic community is governed. Academic ethics is an ethical standard for all researchers to follow and a prerequisite for the credibility of a research result. Therefore, it is meaningful to conduct research related to academic ethics. In this study, a questionnaire survey was administered to Chinese university teachers. According to social cognitive theory, 10 research hypotheses were formulated to construct a cognitive model of academic ethics, and structural equation modeling was applied. This study found that: i. Self-leadership was negatively related to involution (内卷; neijuan) stress and academic moral disengagement, but was positively related to academic moral judgment and academic ethics risk perception; ii. Involution stress was negatively related to academic ethics risk perception and academic moral judgment, but was positively related to academic moral disengagement; iii. Academic moral judgment was positively correlated with academic ethics risk perception, but was negatively related with academic moral disengagement; and iv. Academic ethics risk perception was negatively related to academic moral disengagement. Therefore, this study concluded that academic institutions need to help researchers develop academic self-leadership and minimize the factors that lead to involution stress in order to reduce the occurrence of academic ethical problems.</p>