Ethical dissonance, justifications, and moral behavior

Rachel Barkan, Shahar Ayal, and Dan Ariely
Current Opinion in Psychology
Volume 6, December 2015, Pages 157–161

Abstract

Ethical dissonance is triggered by the inconsistency between the aspiration to uphold a moral self-image and the temptation to benefit from unethical behavior. In terms of a temporal distinction anticipated dissonance occurs before people commit a moral-violation. In contrast, experienced dissonance occurs after people realize they have violated their moral code. We review the psychological mechanisms and justifications people use to reduce ethical dissonance in order to benefit from wrongdoing and still feel moral. We then offer harnessing anticipated-dissonance to help people resist temptation, and utilize experienced-dissonance to prompt moral compensation and atonement. We argue that rather than viewing ethical dissonance as a threat to self-image, we should help people see it as the gate-keeper of their morality.

Highlights

• Ethical dissonance represents the tension between moral-self and unethical behavior.
• Justifications reduce ethical dissonance, allowing to do wrong and feel moral.
• Ethical dissonance can be anticipated before, or experienced after, the violation.
• Effective moral interventions can harness ethical dissonance as a moral gate-keeper.

The article is here.

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.

Psychologist in "Kids for Cash" Scandal Surrenders License

By Roger DuPuis
The Times Leader
Originally published November 12, 2014

The psychologist brother-in-law of disgraced former Luzerne County judge Michael T. Conahan has given up his license for “gross incompetence, negligence or misconduct” carrying out his past work evaluating juveniles in the county court system, state officials said Wednesday.

The Pennsylvania Board of Psychology said Frank James Vita, of Dorrance Township, “grossly deviated from ethical and professional standards” after reviewing 76 of the cases he had handled.

Vita once was linked to the county’s “Kids for Cash” judicial scandal in a civil suit that alleged he conspired with Conahan and fellow former judge Mark Ciavarella to perform evaluations that led to juveniles being incarcerated in facilities in which the judges had a financial interest.

The entire article is here.

How Unethical Behavior Becomes Habit

by Francesca Gino, Lisa D. Ordóñez and David Welsh
Harvard Business Review Blog
Originally posted September 4, 2014

When a former client’s secretary was arrested for embezzlement years before his own crimes were uncovered, Bernie Madoff commented to his own secretary, “Well, you know what happens is, it starts out with you taking a little bit, maybe a few hundred, a few thousand. You get comfortable with that, and before you know it, it snowballs into something big.”

We now know that Madoff’s Ponzi scheme started when he engaged in misreporting to cover relatively small financial losses. Over a 15-year period, the scam grew steadily, eventually ballooning to $65 billion, even as regulators and investors failed to notice the warning signs.

The entire article is here.

Unethical for the Sake of the Group

Risk of social exclusion and pro-group unethical behavior

By S. Thau, R. Defler-Rozin, M. Marko and others
Journal of Applied Psychology, Apr 28 , 2014, No Pagination Specified. doi: 10.1037/a0036708

Abstract

This research tested the idea that the risk of exclusion from one’s group motivates group members to engage in unethical behaviors that secure better outcomes for the group (pro-group unethical behaviors). We theorized that this effect occurs because those at risk of exclusion seek to improve their inclusionary status by engaging in unethical behaviors that benefit the group; we tested this assumption by examining how the effect of exclusion risk on pro-group unethical behavior varies as a function of group members’ need for inclusion. A 2-wave field study conducted among a diverse sample of employees working in groups (Study 1) and a constructive replication using a laboratory experiment (Study 2) provided converging evidence for the theory. Study 1 found that perceived risk of exclusion from one’s workgroup predicted employees’ engagement in pro-group unethical behaviors, but only when employees have a high (not low) need for inclusion. In Study 2, compared to low risk of exclusion from a group, high risk of exclusion led to more pro-group (but not pro-self) unethical behaviors, but only for participants with a high (not low) need for inclusion. We discuss implications for theory and the management of unethical behaviors in organizations.

Introduction

Rising reports of corporate scandals and incidents of employees engaging in behaviors that are considered "illegal or morally unacceptable to the larger community" (Jones, 1991, p. 367) have increased scholarly attention to the nature and causes of unethical behavior in organizations.

Examples of unethical behaviors include stealing from one's employer, deceiving customers, and misrepresenting performance (Trevino, den Nieuwenboer, & Kish- Gephart, 2014).

The costs associated with just one type of these behaviors--employee theft--are estimated at as much as $40 billion yearly (U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 2013), which is nearly ten times the cost of all street crime combined, including burglaries and robberies (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2011).

A large body of research has identified characteristics of individuals, moral issues, and organizational contexts as antecedents of unethical behavior (Kish-Gephart, Harrison, & Trevin~o, 2010; Trevino, 1986; Trevino et al., 2014; Trevino, Weaver, & Reynolds, 2006).

The entire article is here, behind a paywall.

Reprints for the article can be emailed to this author.

(Un)Ethical Behavior in Organizations

Linda Klebe Treviño, Niki A. den Nieuwenboer, and Jennifer J. Kish-Gephart
Annual Review of Psychology
Vol. 65: 635-660 (Volume publication date January 2014)
First published online as a Review in Advance on July 3, 2013
DOI: 10.1146/annurev-psych-113011-143745

Abstract

This review spotlights research related to ethical and unethical behavior in organizations. It builds on previous reviews and meta-analyses of the literature on (un)ethical behavior in organizations and discusses recent advances in the field. The review emphasizes how this research speaks to the influence of the organizational context on (un)ethical behavior, proceeding from a more macro to a more micro view on (un)ethical behavior and covering ethical infrastructures, interpersonal influences, individual differences, and cognitive and affective processes. The conclusion highlights opportunities for future research.

Introduction

Starting in the 1980s, the systematic study of (un)ethical behavior in organizations—often referred to as behavioral ethics in organizations or as organizational ethics (Treviño et al. 2006)—began to take shape. Over the years, a series of ethical debacles has only increased the salience of this area of study for practitioners and researchers alike. Indeed, as a testament to the growing interest among researchers, a number of literature reviews have appeared in recent years—including several qualitative reviews (O'Fallon & Butterfield 2005, Tenbrunsel & Smith-Crowe 2008, Treviño et al. 2006), a meta-analysis of research on the sources of unethical choice in organizations (Kish-Gephart et al. 2010), a meta-analysis of the ethical climate literature (Martin & Cullen 2006), and a meta-analysis of the whistleblowing literature (Mesmer-Magnus & Viswesvaran 2005). The meta-analytic reviews, in particular, represent a major advance, showing that enough research has been conducted for investigators to undertake such statistical reviews.

The entire article is here, behind the paywall.

The Cheater's High: The Unexpected Affective Benefits of Unethical Behavior

By Nicole Ruedy, Celia Moore, Francesca Gino, & Maurice E. Schweitzer

Abstract
 
Many theories of moral behavior share the assumption that unethical behavior triggers negative affect. In this paper, we challenge this assumption and demonstrate that unethical behavior can trigger positive affect, which we term a “cheater’s high.” Across six studies, we find that even though individuals predict they will feel guilty and have increased levels of negative affect after engaging in unethical behavior (Studies 1a and 1b), individuals who cheat on different problem-solving tasks consistently experience more positive affect than those who do not (Studies 2-5). We find that this heightened positive affect is not due to the accrual of undeserved financial incentives (Study 3) and does not depend on self-selection (Study 4). Cheating is associated with feelings of self-satisfaction, and the boost in positive affect from cheating persists even when cheaters acknowledge that their self-reported performance is unreliable (Study 5). Thus, even when prospects for self-deception about unethical behavior have been reduced, the high cheaters experience from “getting away with it” overwhelms the negative affective consequences that people mistakenly predict they will experience after engaging in unethical behavior. Our results have important implications for models of ethical decision making, moral behavior, and self-regulatory theory.

The entire paper is here.

Of Medical Giants, Accolades and Feet of Clay

By LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN, M.D.
The New York Times
Published: April 1, 2013

Medicine honors its heroes in many ways. But sometimes high accolades can turn out to be highly embarrassing.

Consider the annual award for lifetime achievement in preventing and controlling sexual infections, given since 1972 by the American Sexually Transmitted Diseases Association. The prize is named for an authentic giant of medicine: Dr. Thomas Parran Jr., the nation’s sixth surgeon general (from 1936 to 1948), who used what was then a supremely powerful position to lift American public health to the front ranks.

At a time when “venereal diseases” were spoken of in whispers, Dr. Parran influenced Congress to finance rapid-treatment centers to control and prevent syphilis, gonorrhea and chancroid.

(cut)

The debate over the Parran Award throws a spotlight on the issue of changing standards in medicine. What are scientists to do when they name their most prestigious award for an icon linked years later to unethical research?

The two medical scandals revolved around experiments that are now universally regarded as shocking. Dr. Parran did not perform either study. Though national experts approved them both, he presided over them, strongly supported them and followed their progress in medical journals.

One, the Tuskegee study, observed the course of untreated syphilis among hundreds of men who were infected naturally in Alabama. The study began in 1932, and it was not halted by the United States Public Health Service until 1972, after a whistle-blower complained that infected patients in the study were not given penicillin, the standard therapy after World War II.  Some participants died of the disease, some of their sexual partners contracted it, and some children were born infected.

The entire story is here.

Guilt Proneness and Moral Character

By Taya R. Cohen, A. T. Panter and Nazli Turan
Current Directions in Psychological Science 
October 2012 21: 355-359

Abstract

Guilt proneness is a personality trait indicative of a predisposition to experience negative feelings about personal wrongdoing, even when the wrongdoing is private. It is characterized by the anticipation of feeling bad about committing transgressions rather than by guilty feelings in a particular moment or generalized guilty feelings that occur without an eliciting event. Our research has revealed that guilt proneness is an important character trait because knowing a person’s level of guilt proneness helps us to predict the likelihood that person will behave unethically. Web-based studies of adults across the United States have shown that people who score high on measures of guilt proneness (compared to low scorers) make fewer unethical business decisions, commit fewer delinquent behaviors, and behave more honestly when making economic decisions. In the workplace, guilt-prone employees are less likely to engage in counterproductive behaviors that harm their organization.

The entire article is here.

A review of the research article is here.