Because of the unprecedented pace of globalization, foreign experiences are increasingly common and valued. Past research has focused on the benefits of foreign experiences, including enhanced ...creativity and reduced intergroup bias. In contrast, the present work uncovers a potential dark side of foreign experiences: increased immoral behavior. We propose that broad foreign experiences (i.e., experiences in multiple foreign countries) foster not only cognitive flexibility but also moral flexibility. Using multiple methods (longitudinal, correlational, and experimental), 8 studies (N > 2,200) establish that broad foreign experiences can lead to immoral behavior by increasing moral relativism-the belief that morality is relative rather than absolute. The relationship between broad foreign experiences and immoral behavior was robust across a variety of cultural populations (anglophone, francophone), life stages (high school students, university students, MBA students, middle-aged adults), and 7 different measures of immorality. As individuals are exposed to diverse cultures, their moral compass may lose some of its precision.
Creativity is
a common aspiration for individuals, organizations, and societies. Here,
however, we test whether creativity increases dishonesty. We propose that a
creative personality and a creative ...mindset promote individuals' ability to
justify their behavior, which, in turn, leads to unethical behavior. In 5
studies, we show that participants with creative personalities tended to cheat
more than less creative individuals and that dispositional creativity is a
better predictor of unethical behavior than intelligence (Experiment 1). In
addition, we find that participants who were primed to think creatively were
more likely to behave dishonestly than those in a control condition (Experiment
2) and that greater ability to justify their dishonest behavior explained the
link between creativity and increased dishonesty (Experiments 3 and 4). Finally,
we demonstrate that dispositional creativity moderates the influence of
temporarily priming creativity on dishonest behavior (Experiment 5). The results
provide evidence for an association between creativity and dishonesty, thus
highlighting a dark side of creativity.
In four studies, we evaluated how corporate misconduct relates to language patterns, perceptions of immorality, and unethical behavior. First, we analyzed nearly 190 codes of conduct from S&P 500 ...manufacturing companies and observed that corporations with ethics infractions had more linguistically obfuscated codes than corporations without ethics infractions. Next, we tested perceptions of a company based on values statements modified by obfuscation (Study 2). Participants perceived low-obfuscation companies as more moral, warmer, and more trustworthy than high-obfuscation companies. Finally, behavioral experiments (Studies 3a and 3b) revealed that group members cheat more after reading a high-obfuscation values statement than a low-obfuscation values statement. The results provide evidence of a potentially troublesome cycle: corporate unethicality has linguistic traces, can affect how people appraise a company, and can change ethical behavior.
Researchers have documented many cases in which individuals rationalize their regrettable actions. Four experiments examine situations in which people go beyond merely explaining away their ...misconduct to actively deceiving themselves. We find that those who exploit opportunities to cheat on tests are likely to engage in self-deception, inferring that their elevated performance is a sign of intelligence. This short-term psychological benefit of self-deception, however, can come with longer-term costs: when predicting future performance, participants expect to perform equally well—a lack of awareness that persists even when these inflated expectations prove costly. We show that although people expect to cheat, they do not foresee self-deception, and that factors that reinforce the benefits of cheating enhance self-deception. More broadly, the findings of these experiments offer evidence that debates about the relative costs and benefits of self-deception are informed by adopting a temporal view that assesses the cumulative impact of self-deception over time.
Despite our optimistic belief that we would behave honestly when facing the temptation to act unethically, we often cross ethical boundaries. This paper explores one possibility of why people engage ...in unethical behavior over time by suggesting that their memory for their past unethical actions is impaired. We propose that, after engaging in unethical behavior, individuals’ memories of their actions become more obfuscated over time because of the psychological distress and discomfort such misdeeds cause. In nine studies (n = 2,109), we show that engaging in unethical behavior produces changes in memory so that memories of unethical actions gradually become less clear and vivid than memories of ethical actions or other types of actions that are either positive or negative in valence. We term this memory obfuscation of one’s unethical acts over time “unethical amnesia.” Because of unethical amnesia, people are more likely to act dishonestly repeatedly over time.
Globally, fraud has been rising sharply over the last decade, with current estimates placing financial losses at greater than $3.7 trillion annually. Unfortunately, fraud prevention has been stymied ...by lack of a clear and comprehensive understanding of its underlying causes and mechanisms. In this paper, we focus on an important but neglected topic-the biological antecedents and consequences of unethical conduct-using salivary collection of hormones (testosterone and cortisol). We hypothesized that preperformance cortisol levels would interact with preperformance levels of testosterone to regulate cheating behavior in 2 studies. Further, based on the previously untested cheating-as-stress-reduction hypothesis, we predicted a dose-response relationship between cheating and reductions in cortisol and negative affect. Taken together, this research marks the first foray into the possibility that endocrine-system activity plays an important role in the regulation of unethical behavior.
The importance of effective team leadership for achieving surgical excellence is widely accepted, but we understand less about the behaviors that achieve this goal. We studied cardiac surgical teams ...to identify leadership behaviors that best support surgical teamwork.
We observed, surveyed, and interviewed cardiac surgical teams, including 7 surgeons and 116 team members, from September 2013 to April 2015. We documented 1,926 surgeon/team member interactions during 22 cases, coded them by behavior type and valence (ie, positive/negative/neutral), and characterized them by leadership function (conductor, elucidator, delegator, engagement facilitator, tone setter, being human, and safe space maker) to create a novel framework of surgical leadership derived from direct observation. We surveyed nonsurgeon team members about their perceptions of individual surgeon's leadership effectiveness on a 7-point Likert scale and correlated survey measures with individual surgeon profiles created by calculating percentage of behavior types, leader functions, and valence.
Surgeon leadership was rated by nonsurgeons from 4.2 to 6.2 (mean, 5.4). Among the 33 types of behaviors observed, most interactions constituted elucidating (24%) and tone setting (20%). Overall, 66% of interactions (range, 43%–84%) were positive and 11% (range, 1%–45%) were negative. The percentage of positive and negative behaviors correlated strongly (r = 0.85 for positive and r = 0.75 for negative, p < 0.05) with nonsurgeon evaluations of leadership. Facilitating engagement related most positively (r = 0.80; p = 0.03), and negative forms of elucidating, ie, criticism, related most negatively (r = –0.81; p = 0.03).
We identified 7 surgeon leadership functions and related behaviors that impact perceptions of leadership. These observations suggest actionable opportunities to improve team leadership behavior.
•Even people who care about morality often behave dishonestly.•Predictable situational and social forces lead people to behave unethically.•People often cross ethical boundaries without realizing ...they are doing so.•Morality is malleable, rather than being a stable trait.
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 are common. Yet, even more frequent and pervasive are cases of ‘ordinary’ unethical behavior—unethical actions committed by people who value and care about morality but behave unethically when faced with an opportunity to cheat. In this article, I review the recent literature in behavioral ethics and moral psychology on ordinary unethical behavior.
When there is a “bad apple” in the group, are we more likely to follow the example or compensate for their sins? Three experiments showed that whether a group member’s unethical actions lead to ...contagion or restitution depends on the presence of out-group observers. In Experiment 1, participants were more likely to compensate for the transgression of an in-group member than an out-group member when there were out-group observers. Experiment 2 varied the presence of out-group observers and showed that such compensatory behaviors occur only in the presence of out-group members. We suggest that the presence of out-group observers trigger a self-categorization process that induces guilt in individuals for their group members’ transgressions. Indeed, associated guilt mediated the relationship between in-group member’s unethical behavior and participants’ compensatory behavior (Experiment 3). These results suggest that norms implied by others’ behavior and group categorization are important determinants of ethical behavior.
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