Understanding ordinary unethical behavior: why people who value morality act immorally

by Francesca Gino
Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences
Volume 3, June 2015, Pages 107–111

Cheating, deception, organizational misconduct, and many other forms of unethical behavior are among the greatest challenges in today's society. As regularly highlighted by the media, extreme cases and costly scams (e.g., Enron, Bernard Madoff) are common. Yet, even more frequent and pervasive are cases of ‘ordinary’ unethical behavior — unethical actions committed by people who value about morality but behave unethically when faced with an opportunity to cheat. A growing body of research in behavioral ethics and moral psychology shows that even good people (i.e., people who care about being moral) can and often do bad things. Examples include cheating on taxes, deceiving in interpersonal relationships, overstating performance and contributions to teamwork, inflating business expense reports, and lying in negotiations.

When considered cumulatively, ordinary unethical behavior causes considerable societal damage. For instance, employee theft causes U.S. companies to lose approximately $52 billion per year [4]. This empirical evidence is striking in light of social–psychological research that, for decades, has robustly shown that people typically value honesty, believe strongly in their own morality, and strive to maintain a positive self-image as moral individuals.

The entire article is here.

Interview with Dan Ariely

Featured Collaborator of the Month with www.ethicalsystems.org
Originally published on April 24, 2015

Here is an excerpt:

Why are cheating and dishonesty so widespread?

They are part of human nature. We have this incredible balance between honesty and dishonesty. We are taught from a young age to be dishonest in the social realm. We are taught not to tell people that they smell, or that it was the train that made us late instead of us being lazy, if people have a new haircut we say that it is very nice. We learn in the social realm that cheating is in fact desirable to some degree and then we move to the business / professional realm.

Now the rules are different. Now dishonesty is not as good. We don't separate those. Modern society creates a situation where the overlap between our social and professional lives are very high. All of a sudden, the people you interact with socially are the same as you interact with non socially, i.e. in your professional life. These tradeoffs become complex.

It is also important to realize that dishonesty is also about short term vs. long term. Saying something dishonest is a good solution in the short term but not necessarily in the long term, but we don't make this trade off correctly. For example, you say "I love your work" or "Your presentation as great," but then you get stuck with listening to, or having to fix, more of it. Much like other activities we over focus on the short term.

The entire article is here.

Business culture and dishonesty in the banking industry

By Alain Cohn, Ernst Fehr & Michel André Maréchal
Nature (2014) doi:10.1038/nature13977
Published online 19 November 2014

Abstract

Trust in others’ honesty is a key component of the long-term performance of firms, industries, and even whole countries. However, in recent years, numerous scandals involving fraud have undermined confidence in the financial industry. Contemporary commentators have attributed these scandals to the financial sector’s business culture, but no scientific evidence supports this claim. Here we show that employees of a large, international bank behave, on average, honestly in a control condition. However, when their professional identity as bank employees is rendered salient, a significant proportion of them become dishonest. This effect is specific to bank employees because control experiments with employees from other industries and with students show that they do not become more dishonest when their professional identity or bank-related items are rendered salient. Our results thus suggest that the prevailing business culture in the banking industry weakens and undermines the honesty norm, implying that measures to re-establish an honest culture are very important.

The article can be found here.

Behavioral Ethics

PBS
Originally posted June 27, 2014

Why are people dishonest? From Main Street to Wall Street, at home and at work, questionable behavior defies people’s best intentions. Now experts in the social sciences are examining why people so often behave contrary to their own ethical aims and what can be done about it, especially in the world of business. “What we find is that when people are thinking about honesty versus dishonesty,” says Dan Ariely, a professor of behavioral economics at the Duke University Fuqua School of Business, “it’s all about being able, at the moment, to rationalize something and make yourself think that this is actually okay.”




The entire page is here.

Can Classic Moral Stories Promote Honesty in Children?

K. Lee, V. Talwar, A. McCarthy, I. Ross, A. Evans, C. Arruda. Can Classic Moral Stories Promote Honesty in Children? Psychological Science, 2014; DOI: 10.1177/0956797614536401

Abstract

The classic moral stories have been used extensively to teach children about the consequences of lying and the virtue of honesty. Despite their widespread use, there is no evidence whether these stories actually promote honesty in children. This study compared the effectiveness of four classic moral stories in promoting honesty in 3- to 7-year-olds. Surprisingly, the stories of “Pinocchio” and “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” failed to reduce lying in children. In contrast, the apocryphal story of “George Washington and the Cherry Tree” significantly increased truth telling. Further results suggest that the reason for the difference in honesty-promoting effectiveness between the “George Washington” story and the other stories was that the former emphasizes the positive consequences of honesty, whereas the latter focus on the negative consequences of dishonesty. When the “George Washington” story was altered to focus on the negative consequences of dishonesty, it too failed to promote honesty in children.

The entire article is here.

A review of the article from ScienceDaily is here.

Cambodian Activist’s Fall Exposes Broad Deception

By Thomas Fuller
The New York Times
Originally published June 14, 2014

The fall from grace of one of Cambodia’s most prominent social activists and the unraveling of her sad tale of being an orphan sold into sex slavery has highlighted what aid workers here say is widespread embellishment and in some cases outright deception in fund-raising, especially among the country’s orphanages.

Somaly Mam, who rose from rural poverty in Cambodia to become a jet-setting and glamorous symbol of the fight against the exploitation of women and children, stepped down last month from the United States-based charitable organization that carries her name after details of her widely publicized story were thrown into question.

The entire article is here.

Can Classic Moral Stories Promote Honesty in Children?

By Kang Lee, Victoria Talwar, Anjanie McCarthy, Ilana Ross, Angela Evans & Cindy Arruda
Published online before print June 13, 2014, doi: 10.1177/0956797614536401
Psychological Science June 13, 2014

Abstract

The classic moral stories have been used extensively to teach children about the consequences of lying and the virtue of honesty. Despite their widespread use, there is no evidence whether these stories actually promote honesty in children. This study compared the effectiveness of four classic moral stories in promoting honesty in 3- to 7-year-olds. Surprisingly, the stories of “Pinocchio” and “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” failed to reduce lying in children. In contrast, the apocryphal story of “George Washington and the Cherry Tree” significantly increased truth telling. Further results suggest that the reason for the difference in honesty-promoting effectiveness between the “George Washington” story and the other stories was that the former emphasizes the positive consequences of honesty, whereas the latter focus on the negative consequences of dishonesty. When the “George Washington” story was altered to focus on the negative consequences of dishonesty, it too failed to promote honesty in children.

The entire article is here.

Email the author for a copy here.

Debating Dishonesty in Context of Morality and Culture

Cross-Coursera Dishonesty Debate
Originally published on April 3, 2014

Watch the legendary moral philosopher Peter Singer, the distinguished psychologist Paul Bloom, and the expert behavioral economist Dan Ariely as they join hands to discuss their views and research on dishonesty, morality, and ethics.

The three authorities will try not to cross moral boundaries as they cross the digital divisions of their online classes: Singer's "Practical Ethics," Bloom's "Moralities of Everyday Life," and Ariely's "A Beginner's Guide to Irrational Behavior."

Oxytocin Boosts Dishonesty

The so-called “love hormone” can make people more dishonest when it serves the interests of their group.

By Ed Yong
The Scientist
Originally published March 31, 2014

The hormone oxytocin is usually associated with positive traits like trust, cooperation, and empathy, but scientists have now found that it can make people more dishonest when their lies serve the interests of their group.

“This is the best evidence yet that oxytocin is not the ‘moral molecule,’” said Carsten de Dreu from the University of Amsterdam, who co-led the study, which was published today (March 31) in PNAS. “It doesn’t make people more moral or immoral. It shifts people’s focus from themselves to their group or tribe.”

The entire story is here.

Time, Money, and Morality

By Gino, F., and C. Mogilner. "Time, Money, and Morality." Psychological Science (forthcoming).

Abstract

Money, a resource that absorbs much daily attention, seems to be present in much unethical behavior thereby suggesting that money itself may corrupt. This research examines a way to offset such potentially deleterious effects—by focusing on time, a resource that tends to receive less attention than money but is equally ubiquitous in our daily lives. Across four experiments, we examine whether shifting focus onto time can salvage individuals' ethicality. We found that implicitly activating the construct of time, rather than money, leads individuals to behave more ethically by cheating less. We further found that priming time reduces cheating by making people reflect on who they are. Implications for the use of time versus money primes in discouraging or promoting dishonesty are discussed.

The entire article is here.

RSA Animate - The Truth About Dishonesty

Are you more honest than a banker? Under what circumstances would you lie, or cheat, and what effect does your deception have on society at large? Dan Ariely, one of the world's leading voices on human motivation and behaviour is the latest big thinker to get the RSA Animate treatment.

Dan Ariely tells truth about dishonesty, being irrational

Behavioral economist Dan Ariely says it's human to act irrationally, that most people lie, but that we can trust each other.

By Karen Ravn
The Los Angeles Times
Originally published September 6, 2013

Most of us would rather not think of ourselves as irrational or dishonest. But in the books "Predictably Irrational" and "The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty," Dan Ariely, a behavioral economist at Duke University, makes the case that we're all probably both. And what's more, he says, that's not entirely bad.

Does everyone behave irrationally sometimes?

Absolutely yes. Irrationality is not about stupidity. It's about being human. Actually it's about both. Sometimes we behave irrationally because we don't think, or we don't think long-term. But other times it's because we're human, because we're kind and generous and not selfish. So we're all irrational from time to time, and occasionally it's a good thing. How often we do it is hard to say. But consider texting and driving. If you text only 10% of the time that you drive, or even 1%, is that a lot or a little? The trouble is, however rarely you do it, the danger is just tremendous when you do.

The entire interview is here.

People May Lie More Often in Emails, Instant Messages

By Randy Dotinga
MedicineNet.com

New research suggests that people are more likely to lie to strangers when they're communicating via email or instant messages rather than when they are talking face-to-face.

"It's not news that we lie. What's new is that we lie even more online," said study author Mattitiyahu Zimbler, a graduate student and senior researcher at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.

In the study, the researchers recruited 220 undergraduate students and told them to converse with people of the same gender for 15 minutes, via email, instant message or face-to-face.

The participants introduced themselves to each other and researchers recorded their conversations. Then the researchers asked the participants to look at transcripts and note when they lied.

The researchers found that the participants averaged about 1.5 lies during each 15-minute period.

The lies tended to be minor, often matters of omission. One said, "I am short, credit-wise," instead of acknowledging the failing of classes. Some said they were doing "well" or "good" when that wasn't actually the case; one said "I wanted to be a waitress," when that wasn't true.

The entire article can be found here.