John M. Darley (1938-2018) Prentice, Deborah A.
The American psychologist,
11/2019, Volume:
74, Issue:
8
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Presents an obituary for John M. Darley (1938-2018). As a professor of psychology at Princeton, Darley teamed up with colleagues Joel Cooper and Edward E. ("Ned") Jones, to build one of the strongest ...experimental social psychology programs in the country. These articles consolidated John's reputation as one of the premier social psychologists in the country, a true generalist who made important contributions on a remarkably wide range of topics. Also during this period, John wrote an introductory psychology textbook with Princeton colleagues Sam Glucksberg and Ron Kinchla, coauthored several articles and a book on professional issues in psychology, and chaired the Department of Psychology from 1980 to 1985. John was always a great champion of interdisciplinary exchanges and applied research. He spent about a decade, from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, studying behavioral approaches to energy conservation in collaboration with colleagues in engineering. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
Discussions of weapons taboos have failed to take into account the possibility that prescriptive international and national norms of behavior may come into conflict. Using psychological studies of ...trade-offs and protected values as a guide, this article argues that when these conflicts exist, the taboos' individual-level constraining effects can be vitiated. An analysis of General George Marshall's proposal to use chemical weapons against the Japanese in 1945 demonstrates that normative conflict can produce a readiness to violate weapons taboos. In these situations, state decisions to violate taboos may depend on the extent to which the perception of normative conflict is shared by other decision makers and society more generally.
To date, the discussion regarding corporate social responsibility (CSR) has primarily addressed organizational rationale and activities. Little has been said about the individual characteristics and ...behaviors that promote the development of CSR within organizations. In this paper, we propose and test a model to explain individual differences in the propensity to engage in socially responsible behavior (SRB). By linking values, affect and reasoning to managers' propensity to ‘do good’ and ‘do no harm,’ we provide a more complete picture of how SRB arises in organizations. A survey of 643 middle managers in five multinational corporations supports our contention that values, affect and reasoning matter for SRB. In particular, self‐transcendence values (universalism and benevolence) and positive affect increase the propensity to engage in SRB, as do moral and reputation‐based reasoning styles. Moreover, we find that values and affect shape more controlled processes such as moral reasoning. We develop implications for the interaction between the individual and the organization in promoting SRB.
This Article offers experimental evidence that parties are more willing to exploit efficient-breach opportunities when the contract in question includes a liquidated-damages clause. Economists claim ...that the theory of efficient breach allows us to predict when parties will choose to breach a contract if the legal remedy for breach is expectation damages. However, the economic assumption of rational wealth-maximizing actors fails to capture important, shared, nonmonetary values and incentives that shape behavior in predictable ways. When interpersonal obligations are informal or underspecified, people act in accordance with shared community norms, like the moral norm of keeping promises. However, when sanctions for uncooperative behavior are specified or otherwise formalized between the parties, behavior becomes more strategic and more self-interested. A liquidated-damages clause makes the remedy for breach explicit. Using a series of web-based questionnaires, I asked participants to indicate the lowest financial incentive that they would accept to breach a hypothetical contract, showing some subjects a contract with a liquidated-damages clause and others an otherwise identical scenario in which damages were determined by "the law of contracts. "Subjects were more willing to breach a contract—an action normally dictated against by social and moral norms—when damages were stipulated. I argue that even when the law of contracts is clear itself on the legal remedy for breach, moral intuition differentiates between a background law like the rule of expectation damages and an obligation to pay damages included as a clause in the body of the contract. When parties stipulate damages, they clarify the respective expectations of the parties, permitting efficient breach without repudiation of the mutual understanding.
This study examines how the UN Secretary-General's leadership qualities affect how they address threats to peace and security. The personal traits of all seven Secretaries-General are measured and ...categorized into one of three leadership styles: managerial, strategic, and visionary.
This essay discusses the tragic news story of a Chinese toddler, Xiao Yueyue 小悅悅, in light of Mencius’ ethical philosophy and modern studies of moral psychology, which help in understanding the ...problem of passive bystanders that has long vexed the Chinese public. Mencius never said that
every
person would act to help when a child is in danger; he did not even say that people would feel sympathetic for every child in a real life dangerous situation. He simply asserted the existence of a fragile sprout of sympathy that demands constant cultivation and a proper environment to be grown into actual altruistic behavior. This essay also compares and contrasts Mencius’ theory to the works of Martin Hoffman and Daniel C. Batson and shows some of the ways modern empirical psychology supports Mencius’ understanding of sympathy and altruism.
...since this response fails to reconcile its assertion with the findings of sociological and psychological research, it also fails to supply moral justification for war crimes prosecution and ICL. ......none of the views in the current legal discourse are able to successfully argue that, despite the research findings, most actions regulated by ICL and war crimes prosecution are not conditioned.
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