What to Do If Your Job Compromises Your Morals

R. Carucci and L. N. Praslova

Harvard Business Review

Originally posted 29 APR 22

Here are two excerpts:

The emerging scholarship on reconciling the various terms used to describe responses to moral events points toward a continuum of moral harm. Of course, the complexity and variety of moral situations make any classification imperfect. Situations involving committing moral transgressions are more likely to lead to shame and guilt, while being a victim of betrayal is more likely to result in anger or sadness. In addition, there are also individual differences in sensitivity to morally distressing events, which can be determined by both biology and experience. Nevertheless, here is a useful summary:

• Moral challenges are isolated incidents of relatively low-stakes transgressions. For example, workers might be instructed to use lower-quality materials in creating a product (e.g., substituting a non-organic product when running out of organic). A manager may require an employee to stay late, as a rare exception. This may result in a somewhat distressing but transitory “moral frustration,” with moderate levels of anger or guilt.
• Moral stressors can lead to more significant moral distress. This may involve more substantial and/or regular moral transgressions — for example, a manager pushing employees to stay late several times every month, or an HR professional administering a morale survey knowing that the results will never be used, just like all the previous surveys. A dental practice may upsell patients on unnecessary, but not harmful treatments. This may result in negative moral emotions that are bothersome and might be lasting, but do not interfere with daily functioning. (However, in some nursing research, the experience referred to as “moral distress” is seen as very intense, possibly meeting the criteria for moral injury).
• Injurious events are the most egregious. Executives could pressure a manager into manipulating burned-out employees to regularly sacrifice their time off and well being, while the organization intentionally keeps positions open for months. A health care worker might be required to provide medical treatments that are likely to lead to more treatments even though a cure is available. Situations like these could result in a highly distressing moral injury in which negative moral emotions are sufficiently intense and frequent to interfere with daily functioning. In particular, a person may experience intense shame leading to self-isolation or self-harm, or may quit their job in disgust. This level of moral stress response is similar to and at least partially overlaps with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

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Moral injuries can leave lasting impacts on our psyche, but they don’t have to remain debilitating. Like other trauma and hurt, we can grow from them. We can find the resilience we need to rise above the injury and restore our moral centers. Sometimes we’re able to take the environments along on that journey, and sometimes we have to leave them. Either way, if you’re carrying the weight of moral injury, don’t wait until it overtakes your whole outlook on life, and yourself. Find the courage to face what you’ve experienced and done, and with it, reclaim the values you hold most dear.

The info is here.

How the concept of forgiveness is used to gaslight women

Sophie King
Medium.com
Originally posted June 13, 2019

I’m not against the concept of forgiveness, I’ve chosen to forgive people countless times. However, what I’m definitely against, is pressuring people to forgive and shaming them if they don’t. I’ve found there’s a lot of stigma attached to those who choose not to forgive, especially if you’re a woman.

Women that don’t forgive, are assumed to be “scorned”, “bitter and twisted”. The stereotypes that surround “unforgiving” women, are used to gaslight them.

When women express that they’re upset or angry (and justifiably so), as a result of being hurt, people dismiss them as “bitter” and the validity of their feelings and experiences are questioned.

She isn’t psychologically traumatised because she’s been wronged, she’s just a “scorned woman”, “got an axe to grind”, “holding a grudge” and “unable to move on”. The fault lies with her, not the perpetrator because she won’t “let it go” and “get over it”. She’s not the victim, she’s bringing it on herself by not forgiving. The blame is shifted from the wrongdoer to the victim.

The info is here.

Does Non-Moral Ignorance Exculpate? Situational Awareness and Attributions of Blame and Forgiveness

Kissinger-Knox, A., Aragon, P. & Mizrahi, M.
Acta Anal (2018) 33: 161. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-017-0339-y

Abstract

In this paper, we set out to test empirically an idea that many philosophers find intuitive, namely that non-moral ignorance can exculpate. Many philosophers find it intuitive that moral agents are responsible only if they know the particular facts surrounding their action (or inaction). Our results show that whether moral agents are aware of the facts surrounding their (in)action does have an effect on people’s attributions of blame, regardless of the consequences or side effects of the agent’s actions. In general, it was more likely that a situationally aware agent will be blamed for failing to perform the obligatory action than a situationally unaware agent. We also tested attributions of forgiveness in addition to attributions of blame. In general, it was less likely that a situationally aware agent will be forgiven for failing to perform the obligatory action than a situationally unaware agent. When the agent is situationally unaware, it is more likely that the agent will be forgiven than blamed. We argue that these results provide some empirical support for the hypothesis that there is something intuitive about the idea that non-moral ignorance can exculpate.

The article is here.

Forgiveness Therapy for the Promotion of Mental Well-Being

Sadaf Akhtar, Jane Barlow
Trauma, Violence & Abuse 2016 March 23

Abstract

Interpersonal hurts and violence against the individual have a high prevalence and are associated with a range of long-term problems in terms of psychological functioning. There is a growing body of research highlighting the role of forgiveness therapy in improving different aspects of psychological health in populations who have experienced diverse types of hurt, violence, or trauma. This article reports the findings of a systematic review and meta-analysis of the efficacy of process-based forgiveness interventions among samples of adolescents and adults who had experienced a range of sources of hurt or violence against them. Randomized controlled trials were retrieved using electronic databases and an examination of reference sections of previous reviews; each study was assessed for risk of bias. Standardized mean differences (SMDs) and confidence intervals (CIs) were used to assess treatment effects. The results suggest that forgiveness interventions are effective in reducing depression (SMD = −0.37, 95% CI [−0.68, −0.07]), anger and hostility (SMD = −0.49, 95% CI [−0.77, −0.22]), and stress and distress (SMD = −0.66, 95% CI [−0.91, −0.41]) and in promoting positive affect (SMD = −0.29, 95% CI [−0.52, −0.06]). There was also evidence of improvements in state (SMD = −0.55, 95% CI [−0.88, −0.21) and trait (SMD = −0.43, 95% CI [−0.67, −0.20]) forgiveness. The findings provide moderately strong evidence to suggest that forgiving a variety of real-life interpersonal offenses can be effective in promoting different dimensions of mental well-being. Further research is, however, needed.

The article is here.

Medical errors: Disclosure styles, interpersonal forgiveness, and outcomes

Hannawa, A. F., Shigemoto, Y., & Little, T. (2016).
Social Science & Medicine, 156, 29-38.

Abstract

Rationale

This study investigates the intrapersonal and interpersonal factors and processes that are associated with patient forgiveness of a provider in the aftermath of a harmful medical error.

Objective

This study aims to examine what antecedents are most predictive of patient forgiveness and non-forgiveness, and the extent to which social-cognitive factors (i.e., fault attributions, empathy, rumination) influence the forgiveness process. Furthermore, the study evaluates the role of different disclosure styles in two different forgiveness models, and measures their respective causal outcomes.

Methods

In January 2011, 318 outpatients at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in the United States were randomly assigned to three hypothetical error disclosure vignettes that operationalized verbally effective disclosures with different nonverbal disclosure styles (i.e., high nonverbal involvement, low nonverbal involvement, written disclosure vignette without nonverbal information). All patients responded to the same forgiveness-related self-report measures after having been exposed to one of the vignettes.

Results

The results favored the proximity model of interpersonal forgiveness, which implies that factors more proximal in time to the act of forgiving (i.e., patient rumination and empathy for the offender) are more predictive of forgiveness and non-forgiveness than less proximal factors (e.g., relationship variables and offense-related factors such as the presence or absence of an apology). Patients' fault attributions had no effect on their forgiveness across conditions. The results evidenced sizeable effects of physician nonverbal involvement-patients in the low nonverbal involvement condition perceived the error as more severe, experienced the physician's apology as less sincere, were more likely to blame the physician, felt less empathy, ruminated more about the error, were less likely to forgive and more likely to avoid the physician, reported less closeness, trust, and satisfaction but higher distress, were more likely to change doctors, less compliant, and more likely to seek legal advice.

Conclusion

The findings of this study imply that physician nonverbal involvement during error disclosures stimulates a healing mechanism for patients and the physician-patient relationship. Physicians who disclose a medical error in a nonverbally uninvolved way, on the other hand, carry a higher malpractice risk and are less likely to promote healthy, reconciliatory outcomes.

The article is here.

Forgiveness can improve mental and physical health

By Kirsten Weir
The Monitor on Psychology
January 2017, Vol 48, No. 1
Print version: page 30

Here is an excerpt:

One common but mistaken belief is that forgiveness means letting the person who hurt you off the hook. Yet forgiveness is not the same as justice, nor does it require reconciliation, Worthington explains. A former victim of abuse shouldn't reconcile with an abuser who remains potentially dangerous, for example. But the victim can still come to a place of empathy and understanding. "Whether I forgive or don't forgive isn't going to affect whether justice is done," Worthington says. "Forgiveness happens inside my skin."

Another misconception is that forgiving someone is a sign of weakness. "To that I say, well, the person must not have tried it," says Worthington.

And there may be very good reasons to make the effort. Research has shown that forgiveness is linked to mental health outcomes such as reduced anxiety, depression and major psychiatric disorders, as well as with fewer physical health symptoms and lower mortality rates. In fact, researchers have amassed enough evidence of the benefits of forgiveness to fill a book; Toussaint, Worthington and David R. Williams, PhD, edited a 2015 book, "Forgiveness and Health," that detailed the physical and psychological benefits.

Toussaint and Worthington suggest that stress relief is probably the chief factor connecting forgiveness and well-being. "We know chronic stress is bad for our health," Toussaint says. "Forgiveness allows you to let go of the chronic interpersonal stressors that cause us undue burden."

While stress relief is important, Enright believes there are other important mechanisms by which forgiveness works its magic. One of those, he suggests, is "toxic" anger. "There's nothing wrong with healthy anger, but when anger is very deep and long lasting, it can do a number on us systemically," he says. "When you get rid of anger, your muscles relax, you're less anxious, you have more energy, your immune system can strengthen."

The article is here.

Forgive Us Our Trespasses: Priming a Forgiving (But Not a Punishing) God Increases Unethical Behavior

Amber E DeBono, Azim Shariff, Sarah Poole, and Mark Muraven
Psychology of Religion and Spirituality · December 2016

Abstract

Religious people differ in how punishing or forgiving they see their Gods. Such different beliefs may have distinct consequences in encouraging people to act in normative ways. Though a number of priming studies have shown a positive causal relationship between religion and normative behavior, few have primed different aspects of religion, and none has examined the punishing/forgiving dimension. In three experiments, Christians instructed to read and write about a forgiving God stole more money (Experiments 1 and 2) and cheated more on a math assignment (Experiment 3) than those who read and wrote about a punishing God, a forgiving human, a punishing human, or those in a control condition. These studies present a more complex and nuanced picture of the important relationship between religion and normative behavior.

The article is here.

To blame or to forgive?

By Nicola Lacey and Hanna Pickard
Oxford University Blog
Originally published March

What do you do when faced with wrongdoing – do you blame or do you forgive? Especially when confronted with offences that lie on the more severe end of the spectrum and cause terrible psychological or physical trauma or death, nothing can feel more natural than to blame. Indeed, in the UK and the US, increasingly vehement and righteous public expressions of blame and calls for vengeance are commonplace; correspondingly, contemporary penal philosophy has witnessed a resurgence of the retributive tradition, in the modern form usually known as the ‘just deserts’ model.

But if we stop to think about it, this criminal justice practice stands in contrast to significant features of our everyday moral practices. People can and routinely do forgive others, even in cases of severe crime. Evolutionary psychologists have argued that both vengeance and forgiveness are universal human adaptations that have evolved as alternative responses to exploitation, and, crucially, strategies for reducing risk of re-offending. We are naturally endowed with both capacities: to blame and retaliate, or to forgive and seek to repair relations. We have a choice. Which should we choose?

The blog post is here.

Can Adversity Make Us Good?

By Eranda Jayawickreme
Big Ideas at Slate.com

Here is an excerpt:

Nevertheless, we know that adversity can help answer the question, “Why be good?” Psychologist Johanna Ray Vollhardt at Clark University has claimed that traumatic life events may in fact enhance the motivation to help other disadvantaged members of society, including people outside the groups with which you identify. One possible explanation for this “altruism born of suffering” is that trauma often forces people to recognize how limited their time on Earth is, which in turn clarifies their values and promotes moral behavior. Blackie found this to be the case in a study she published in Psychological Science, where experimentally manipulating thoughts about death—in this case, asking participants to imagine dying in an apartment fire—predicted increased charitable giving behavior (in this case, the intention to donate blood).

In other words, as the philosopher Valerie Tiberius at the University of Minnesota has argued, we want to be good because we care about having good lives, and adversity can help provide the necessary knowledge and perspective. I would call this knowledge and perspective wisdom.

The entire article is here.

Measuring the Return on Character

Harvard Business Review
April 2015

Here is an excerpt:

Character is a subjective trait that might seem to defy quantification. To measure it, KRW cofounder Fred Kiel and his colleagues began by sifting through the anthropologist Donald Brown’s classic inventory of about 500 behaviors and characteristics that are recognized and displayed in all human societies. Drawing on that list, they identified four moral principles—integrity, responsibility, forgiveness, and compassion—as universal. Then they sent anonymous surveys to employees at 84 U.S. companies and nonprofits, asking, among other things, how consistently their CEOs and management teams embodied the four principles. They also interviewed many of the executives and analyzed the organizations’ financial results. When financial data was unavailable, leaders’ results were excluded.

The entire article is here.

How the brain heals emotional wounds: the functional neuroanatomy of forgiveness

Ricciardi E, Rota G, Sani L, Gentili C, Gaglianese A, Guazzelli M and Pietrini P (2013)
How the brain heals emotional wounds: the functional neuroanatomy of forgiveness.
Front. Hum. Neurosci. 7:839. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2013.00839

In life, everyone goes through hurtful events caused by significant others: a deceiving friend, a betraying partner, or an unjustly blaming parent. In response to painful emotions, individuals may react with anger, hostility, and the desire for revenge. As an alternative, they may decide to forgive the wrongdoer and relinquish resentment. In the present study, we examined the brain correlates of forgiveness using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). Healthy participants were induced to imagine social scenarios that described emotionally hurtful events followed by the indication to either forgive the imagined offenders, or harbor a grudge toward them. Subjects rated their imaginative skills, levels of anger, frustration, and/or relief when imagining negative events as well as following forgiveness. Forgiveness was associated with positive emotional states as compared to unforgiveness. Granting forgiveness was associated with activations in a brain network involved in theory of mind, empathy, and the regulation of affect through cognition, which comprised the precuneus, right inferior parietal regions, and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Our results uncovered the neuronal basis of reappraisal-driven forgiveness, and extend extant data on emotional regulation to the resolution of anger and resentment following negative interpersonal events.

The entire article is here.

Forgiveness: How does it work?

By Justin Caouette
A Philosopher's Take
Originally published June 12, 2013

Here are some excerpts:

My current philosophical interests are centered around the metaphysics of moral responsibility. This forces me to deal with the assumed underlying epistemic and control conditions. It also forces me to consider blame; when one is worthy of it (blameworthiness), how we normally ascribe it (active blame), and how we move from blame and holding one accountable to forgiveness. The focus of this post will be on forgiveness and some questions that arise when thinking about it.

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Emotional forgiveness seems to be a more difficult form of forgiveness that is much less attainable. Let’s take the same case into consideration. Following the punch in the face you get angry. Even after you’ve come to a rational understanding of why he did it you may still carry the anger or disappointment in his inability to see the difference between you and the thief. This may permanently harm your relationship to him, and, if it does it can be said that you have not emotionally forgave him.

The entire blog post is here.

Research on religion/spirituality and forgiveness: A meta-analytic review.

By Don Davis and others
Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, Vol 5(4), Nov 2013, 233-241.
doi: 10.1037/a0033637

Abstract

In the present article, we review the literature on religion/spirituality (R/S) and forgiveness using meta-analysis. R/S was positively related to trait forgivingness (i.e., across relationships and situations; r = .29), state forgiveness (i.e., of a specific offense; r = .15), and self-forgiveness (r = .12). Contextual measures of R/S more proximal to the forgiveness process were more strongly related to state forgiveness than were dispositional measures of R/S. Measures of one’s relationship with the sacred were more strongly related to self-forgiveness than were dispositional R/S measures. We discuss implications for next steps in the study of R/S and forgiveness.

Introduction

Until the early 1990s, forgiveness had been studied primarily by philosophers and theologians, and thus forgiveness was primarily conceptualized as a philosophical or religious construct. Since that time, however, the psychological study of forgiveness has expanded rapidly (for a recent review, see Fehr, Gelfand, & Nag, 2010).

Forgiveness has been associated with a variety of benefits for physical health, mental health, and relationships (McCullough, Root, Tabak, & Witvliet, 2009), primarily through the reduction of stress (Worthington & Scherer, 2004).

Given the numerous personal and social benefits of forgiveness, psychologists have sought to understand factors that might promote or hinder forgiveness.

One factor that has received considerable attention in the psychological literature on forgiveness is religion/spirituality (R/S).

In the present article, we provide an overview of trends in research on R/S and forgiveness.

Recently, research has shifted toward more fluid and contextual accounts of how R/S influences forgiveness.

We conducted a meta-analytic review to explore the relationship between R/S and forgiveness, and we examined R/S measurement moderators based on these theoretical shifts in the field.

The entire article is here.

Thanks to Ken Pope for this article.