The pot calling the kettle black: Distancing response to ethical dissonance.

Barkan, Rachel; Ayal, Shahar; Gino, Francesca; Ariely, Dan

doi:10.1037/a0027588

Cited by 139 publications

(123 citation statements)

References 89 publications

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“…In fact, people's unethical acts lead them to disengage morally by judging wrongdoing as less morally problematic than they would otherwise (7). Additionally, to reduce the psychological discomfort experienced after committing unethical acts, people use a double-distancing mechanism, judging others' transgressions more harshly than their own and presenting themselves as more virtuous and ethical in comparison (9).…”

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confidence: 99%

Memories of unethical actions become obfuscated over time

Kouchaki

Gino

2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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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.dishonesty | memory | unethical behavior | psychological dissonance | morality A cross the globe, dishonesty is a widespread and common phenomenon. On an all-too-regular basis, the news reports cases of ethical misconduct in business, politics, sports, education, and medicine, behaviors that cost society millions, possibly billions, of dollars every year. Although certainly worrisome, these actions account for only a small portion of the dishonesty present in societies across the globe. Many people who consider themselves honest nevertheless often cheat on taxes, steal from the workplace, illegally download music from the internet, have extramarital affairs, use public transportation for free, lie, and so on. The costs of such arguably small-scale dishonesty are surprisingly large, both socially and financially.These troubling data explain, at least in part, why scholars across disciplines ranging from law and economics to psychology and management have become increasingly interested in studying when and why people, even those who report that they value morality, often act unethically (1). To date, this research has focused largely on identifying situational pressures that can sway a person's moral compass (2) and on examining how individual differences predict various forms of unethical behavior (3).Despite the many insights such work has provided, we still know little about why people engage in unethical behavior repeatedly over time. Because dishonesty often results in guilt, remorse, or other negative emotions (4), we might expect that people would avoid continuing to act unethically. However, anecdotal evidence across the domains highlighted earlier suggests just the opposite. Here, we identify one possible reason for persistent dishonesty: Unethical actions tend to be forgotten; when remembered, memories of unethical behavior become less clear and vivid over time than those of ethical actions or other types of positive and negative behaviors.Despite the common belief people hold that they are more ethical and fairer than others (5) and their strong de...

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confidence: 99%

Memories of unethical actions become obfuscated over time

Kouchaki

Gino

2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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124

153

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“…Our paper clearly suggests one way in which dissonance can trigger unethical behavior. However, many questions regarding the role of motivated moral reasoning in the reduction of dissonance after an unethical act (Barkan, Ayal, Gino, & Ariely, 2012;Ditto, Pizarro, & Tannenbaum, 2009), how post-decisional dissonance can be reduced behaviorally (Lee & Schwarz, 2010), or how dissonance might trigger moral development as well as moral violations (Rholes, Bailey, & McMillan, 1982) remain open. As a field, we have only scratched the surface in terms of the role that cognitive dissonance plays in unethical behavior.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dangerous Expectations: Breaking Rules to Resolve Cognitive Dissonance

Moore¹,

Wakeman

Gino

2014

SSRN Journal

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When entering task performance contexts we generally have expectations about both the task and how well we will perform on it. When those expectations go unmet, we experience psychological discomfort (cognitive dissonance), which we are then motivated to resolve. Prior research on expectancy disconfirmation in task performance contexts has focused on the dysfunctional consequences of disconfirming low performance expectations (i.e., stereotype threat). In this paper we focus on the dysfunctional consequences of disconfirming high performance expectations. In three studies, we find that individuals are more likely to break rules if they have been led to expect that achieving high levels of performance will be easy rather than difficult, even if breaking rules means behaving unethically. We show that this willingness to break rules is not due to differences in legitimate performance as a function of how easy people expect the task to be, or whether their expectations are set explicitly (by referring to others' performance) or implicitly (as implied by their own prior performance). Instead, using a misattribution paradigm, we show that cognitive dissonance triggered by unmet expectations drives our effects.Words: 181

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“…Las justificaciones a posteriori son usadas como actos de limpieza, que pueden ser físicos, como lavarse las manos, o simbólicos, como refugiarse en directrices religiosas (Monin & Miller, 2001), la confesión, cuando las personas admiten su culpa para sentirse mejor (Peer, Acquisti, & Shalvi, 2014), y el distanciamiento, que consiste en centrar la atención en las acciones poco éticas de los demás para verse uno mismo de manera positiva (Barkan, Ayal, Gino, & Ariely, 2012).…”

Section: Modelos Anglófonosunclassified