The ethical mirage: A temporal explanation as to why we are not as ethical as we think we are

Research in Organizational Behavior

Volumn 30, Issue C, 2010, Pages 153-173

  Tenbrunsel, Ann E ^a   Diekmann, Kristina A ^b   Wade Benzoni, Kimberly A ^c   Bazerman, Max H ^d  

^a UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF UTAH   (United States)

^c DUKE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^d HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 78649442150     PISSN: 01913085     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/j.riob.2010.08.004     Document Type: Review

References (144)

1. Ainslie G. Specious reward: A behavioral theory of impulsiveness and impulse control. Psychological Bulletin 1975, 82(4):463-496.
2. Ainslie G. Picoeconomics: The strategic interaction of successive motivational states within the person 1992, Cambridge University Press, New York.
3. Ashforth B.E., Anand V. The normalization of corruption in organizations. Research in Organizational Behavior 2003, 25:1-52.
4. Ashraf N., Karlan D., Yin W. Tying Odysseus to the mast: Evidence from a commitment savings product in the Philippines. Quarterly Journal of Economics 2005, 121:635-672.
5. Banaji M.R., Bazerman M.H., Chugh D. How (un)ethical are you?. Harvard Business Review 2003, 81(12):56-64.
6. Banaji M.R., Bhaskar R. Implicit stereotypes and memory: The bounded rationality of social beliefs. Memory, brain, and belief 2000, 139-175. Harvard University Press, Cambridge. D.L. Schacter, E. Scarry (Eds.).
7. Bandura A. Moral disengagement in the perpetuation of humanities. Personality and Social Psychology Review 1999, 3:193-209.
8. Baron J. Myside bias in thinking about abortion. Thinking and Reasoning 1995, 1:221-235.
9. Baumeister R.F., Bratslavsky E., Finkenauer C., Vohs K. Bad is stronger than good. Review of General Psychology 2001, 5(4):323-370.
10. Baumeister R.F., Newman L.S. Self-regulation of cognitive inference and decision processes. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 1994, 20:3-19.
11. Bazerman M.H., Banaji M.R. The social psychology of ordinary ethical failures. Social Justice Research 2004, 17:111-115.
12. Bazerman, M. H., Loewenstein, G., & Moore, D. A. (2002, November). Why good accountants do bad audits. Harvard Business Review.
13. Bazerman M.H., Moore D.A. Judgment in managerial decision making 2008, John Wiley & Sons, Inc, New York.
14. Bazerman M.H., Tenbrunsel A.E., Wade-Benzoni K. Negotiating with yourself and losing: Making decisions with competing internal preferences. Academy of Management Review 1998, 23(2):225-241.
15. Benartzi S., Thaler R. Save more tomorrow: Using behavioral economics to increase employee savings. Journal of Political Economy 2004, 112(1):164-187.
16. Bok S. Secrets 1989, Vintage Books, New York.
17. Brockner J., Rubin J.Z. Entrapment in escalation situations: A social psychological analysis 1985, Springer-Verlag, New York.
18. Buehler R., Griffin D., MacDonald H. The role of motivated reasoning in optimistic time predictions. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 1997, 23:238-247.
19. Buehler R., Griffin D., Ross L. Exploring the "planning fallacy": Why people underestimate their task completion times. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1994, 67:366-381.
20. Bolles R.C. The theory of motivation 1975, Harper & Row, New York. 2nd ed.
21. Caruso E., Epley N., Bazerman M.H. The good, the bad and the ugly of perspective taking in groups. Research on managing groups and teams: Ethics and groups 2006, Vol. 8. Elsevier, London.
22. Chaiken S., Giner-Sorolla R., Chen S. Beyond accuracy: Defense and impression motives in heuristic and systematic information processing. The psychology of action: Linking cognition and motivation to behavior 1996, 553-578. Guilford Press, New York. P.M. Gollwitzer, J.A. Bargh (Eds.).
23. Chugh D. Why milliseconds matter: Societal and managerial implications of implicit social cognition. Social Justice Research 2004, 17(2):203-222.
24. Chugh D., Bazerman M.H., Banaji M.R. Bounded ethicality as a psychological barrier to recognizing conflicts of interest. Conflicts of interest: Problems and solutions from law, medicine and organizational Settings 2005, Cambridge University Press, London. D.A. Moore, D.M. Cain, G.F. Loewenstein, M.H. Bazerman (Eds.).
25. Ciulla J.B. The ethical challenges of non-profit leaders. Improving leadership in non-profit organizations 2003, 63-75. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco. R.E. Riggio, S.S. Orr (Eds.).
26. Clore G.L., Schwartz N., Conway M. Affective causes and consequences of social information processing. Handbook of social cognition 1994, 323-417. Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ. 2nd ed. R. Wyer, T. Srull (Eds.).
27. Cushman F., Young L., Hauser M. The role of conscious reasoning and intuition in moral judgment: Testing three principles of harm. Psychological Science 2006, 17(12):1082-1089.
28. Damasio A. Descartes' error: Emotion, reason, and the human brain 1994, Putnam, New York.
29. Darley J.M., Gross P. A hypothesis confirming bias in labeling effects. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1983, 44:20-33.
30. Diekmann, K. A., Galinsky, A. D., Sillito, S. D., & Tenbrunsel, A. E. (2010a). Sexual harassment in the workplace: Why we condemn passive victims and what we can do about it. Working Paper.
31. Diekmann, K.A., Galinsky, A.D., Sillito, S.D., & Tenbrunsel, A.E. 2010b. Ignoring important motivations in negotiation: A source of bias in behavioral forecasting. Working paper.
32. Diekmann K.A., Tenbrunsel A.E., Galinsky A.D. From self-prediction to self-defeat: Behavioral forecasting, self-fulfilling prophecies, and the effect of competitive expectations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 2003, 85:672-683.
33. Elster J. Weakness of will and the free-rider problem. Economics and Philosophy 1985, 1:231-365.
34. Epley N., Dunning D. Feeling "holier than thou": Are self-serving assessments produced by errors in self- or social prediction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 2000, 79(6):861-875.
35. Epley N., Dunning D. The mixed blessings of self-knowledge in behavioral prediction: Enhanced discrimination but exacerbated bias. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 2006, 32:641-655.
36. Epstein S. The self-concept revisited. American Psychologist 1973, 28:404-416.
37. Fischhoff B. Debiasing. Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases 1982, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. D. Kahneman, P. Slovic, A. Tversky (Eds.).
38. Gilovich T., Kerr M., Medvec V.H. Effect of temporal perspective on subjective confidence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1993, 64:552-560.
39. Gilovich T., Medvec V.H. The experience of regret: What, when, and why. Psychological Review 1995, 102:379-395.
40. Gino F., Bazerman M.H. When misconduct goes unnoticed: The acceptability of gradual erosion in others' unethical behavior. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 2009, 45(4):708-719.
41. Gneezy U., Rustichini A. A fine is a price. Journal of Legal Studies 2000, 29(1):1-17.
42. Green L. Self-control behavior in animals. Research in Experimental Economics 1982, 2:129-150.
43. Greene J.D., Sommerville R.B., Nystrom L.E., Darley J.M., Cohen J.D. An fMRI investigation of emotional engagement in moral judgment. Science 2001, 293(5537):2105-2108.
44. Griffin D.W., Dunning D., Ross L. The role of construal processes in overconfident predictions about the self and others. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1990, 59:1128-1139.
45. Haidt J. The emotional dog and its rational tail: A social intuitionist approach to moral judgment. Psychological Review 2001, 1089(4):814-834.
46. Hammond J.S., Keeney R.L., Raiffa H. The hidden traps in decision making. Harvard Business Review 2006, 84:118-125.
47. Hastie R., Park B., Weber R. Social memory. Handbook of social cognition 1984, Vol. 2:151-212. Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ.
48. Irwin J.R., Slovic P., Lichtenstein S., McClelland G.H. Preference reversals and the measurement of environmental values. Journal of Risk and Uncertainty 1993, 6:5-18.
49. Joseph, J. (2003). National Business Ethics Survey 2003: How employees view ethics in their organizations. Washington, DC: Ethics Resource Center.
50. Kagan J. The nature of the child 1984, Basic Books, New York.
51. Kahneman D., Frederick S. Representativeness revisited: Attribute substitution in intuitive judgment. Heuristics and biases: The psychology of intuitive judgment 2002, 49-81. Cambridge University Press, New York. T. Gilovich, D. Griffin, D. Kahneman (Eds.).
52. Kahneman D., Ritov I., Jacowitz K.E., Grant P. Stated willingness to pay for public goods: A psychological perspective. Psychological Science 1993, 4:310-315.
53. Kivetz Y., Tyler T.R. Tomorrow I'll be me: The effect of time perspective on the activation of idealistic versus pragmatic selves. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 2007, 102:193-211.
54. Kivetz R., Simonson I. The effects of incomplete information on consumer choice. Journal of Marketing Research 2000, 37(4):427-448.
55. Knutson B., Rick S., Wimmer G.E., Prelec D., Loewenstein G. Neural predictors of purchases. Neuron 2007, 5:147-156.
56. Kulik J.A., Sledge P., Mahler H.I.M. Self-confirmatory attribution, egocentrism, and the perpetration of self beliefs. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1986, 50:587-594.
57. Kunda Z The case for motivated reasoning. Psychological Bulletin 1990, 108:480-498.
58. Kunst-Wilson W.R., Zajonc R.B. Affective discrimination of stimuli that cannot be recognized. Science 1980, 207:557-558.
59. Larrick R. Debiasing. Blackwell handbook of judgment and decision making 2004, Blackwell, Oxford, UK. D.J. Koehler, N. Harvey (Eds.).
60. Lerner J.S., Tetlock P.E. Accounting for the effects of accountability. Psychological Bulletin 1999, 125(2):255-275.
61. Liberman N., Trope Y. The role of feasibility and desirability considerations in near and distant future decisions: A test of temporal construal theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1998, 75:5-18.
62. Lichtenstein S., Fischhoff B. Training for calibration. Organizational Behavior & Human Decision Processes 1980, 26(2):149-171.
63. Loewenstein G. Out of control: Visceral influences on behavior. Organizational Behavior & Human Decision Processes 1996, 65(3):272-292.
64. Lowenthal D.J. What voters care about: How electoral context influences issue salience in campaigns 1996, Carnegie-Mellon University.
65. March J.G. A primer on decision making 1995, Free Press, New York.
66. Markus H. Self-schemata and processing information about the self. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1977, 35:63-78.
67. Markus H., Nurius P. Possible selves. American Psychologist 1986, 51:858-866.
68. Markus H., Wurf E. The dynamic self-concept: A social psychological perspective. Annual Review of Psychology 1987, 38:299-337.
69. Messick, D. M. (1994, March 1). Mortgage-bias complexities. Chicago Tribune.
70. Messick D.M. Alternative logics for decision making in social settings. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 1999, 38:11-28.
71. Milgram S. Obedience to authority: An experimental view 1974, Harper & Row, New York.
72. Milkman K.L., Rogers T., Bazerman M.H. Highbrow films gather dust: Time-inconsistent preferences and online DVD rentals. Management Science 2009, 55(6):1047-1059.
73. Milkman K.L., Rogers T., Bazerman M.H. I'll Have the Ice Cream Soon and the Vegetables Later: A Study of Online Grocery Purchases and Order Lead Time. Marketing Letters 2010, 21(1):17-35.
74. Mischel W., Ebbesen E.B., Zeiss A.M. Determinants of selective memory about the self. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 1976, 44(1):92-103.
75. Mischel W., Shoda Y., Rodriguez M.L. Delay of gratification in children. Science 1989, 244:933-938.
76. Mitchell T.R., Thompson L., Peterson E., Cronc R. Temporal adjustments in the evaluation of events: The "rosy view" Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 1997, 33:421-448.
77. Moll J Frontopolar and anterior temporal cortex activation in a moral judgment task: Preliminary functional MFI results in normal subjects. Arq Neuropsiquiatr 2001, 59:657-664.
78. Moll J., de Oliveira-Souza R., Bramati I.E., Grafman J. Functional networks in emotional moral and nonmoral social judgments. Neuroimage 2002, 16:696-703.
79. Moll J., de Oliveira-Souza R., Eslinger P.J., Bramati I.E., Mourão-Miranda J., Andreiuolo P.A., et al. The neural correlates of moral sensitivity: A functional magnetic resonance imaging investigation of basic and moral emotions. Journal of Neuroscience 2002, 22:2730-2736.
80. Moll J., de Oliveira-Souza R., Moll F.T., Ignacio F.A., Bramati I.E., Caparelli-Daquer E.M., et al. The moral affiliations of disgust: A functional MRI study. Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology 2005, 18(1):68-78.
81. Moore D.A., Tetlock P.E., Tanlu L., Bazerman M.H. Conflicts of interest and the case of auditor independence: Moral seduction and strategic issue cycling. Academy of Management Review 2006, 31:10-29.
82. Moskowitz G.B., Skurnik I., Galinsky A.D. The history of dual process notions, and the future of pre-conscious control. Dual process theories in social psychology 1999, 12-36. Guilford Press, New York. S. Chaiken, T. Trope (Eds.).
83. Mussweiler T., Strack F., Pfeiffer T. Overcoming the inevitable anchoring effect: Considering the opposite compensates for selective accessibility. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 2000, 26:1142-1150.
84. Newby-Clark I.R., Ross M., Buehler R., Koehler D.J., Griffin D. People focus on optimistic scenarios and disregard pessimistic scenarios while predicting task completion times. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied 2000, 6:171-182.
85. Nisbett R., Ross L. Human inference strategies and shortcomings of social judgment 1980, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.
86. Nisbett R., Wilson T.D. Telling more than we can know: Verbal reports on mental processes. Psychological Review 1977, 84:231-259.
87. O'Banion K., Arkowitz H. Social anxiety and selective memory for affective information about the self. Social Behavior and Personality 1977, 5(2):321-328.
88. O'Connor K.M., deDreu C.K.W., Schroth H., Barry B., Lituchy T., Bazerman M.H. What we want to do versus what we think we should do. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making 2002, 15:403-418.
89. Osberg T.M., Shrauger J.S. Self-prediction: Exploring the parameters of accuracy. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1986, 5:1044-1057.
90. Paharia, N., & Deshpande, R. (2009). Sweatshop Labor is Wrong Unless the Jeans are Cute: Motivated Moral Disengagement. Harvard Business School Working Paper.
91. Perkins D.N., Allen R., Hafner J. Difficulties in everyday reasoning. Thinking: The frontier expands 1983, 177-189. Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ. W. Maxwell (Ed.).
92. Perkins D.N., Farady M., Bushey B. Everyday reasoning and the roots of intelligence. Information reasoning and education 1991, 83-105. Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ. J.F. Voss, D.N. Perkins, J.W. Segal (Eds.).
93. Pyszczynski T., Greenberg J. Toward an integration of cognitive and motivational perspectives on social inference: A biased hypothesis-testing model. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 1987, 20:297-340.
94. Read D., Loewenstein G., Kalyanaraman S. Mixing virtue with vice: Combining the immediacy effect and the diversification heuristic. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making 1999, 12:257-273.
95. Rest J.R. Moral development: Advances in research and theory 1986, Praeger, New York.
96. Reynolds S.J. A neurocognitive model of the ethical decision-making process: Implications for study and practice. Journal of Applied Psychology 2006, 91:737-748.
97. Ritov I., Baron J. Reluctance to vaccinate: Omission bias and ambiguity. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making 1990, 3:263-277.
98. Rogers T., Bazerman M.H. Future Lock-in: Future Implementation Increases Selection of 'Should' Choices. Organizational Behavioral and Human Decision Processes 2008, 106(1):1-20.
99. Ross M. Relation of implicit theories to the construction of personal histories. Psychological Review 1989, 96:341-357.
100. Schwarz N., Clore G.L. Mood, misattribution, and judgments of well-being: Information and directive functions of affective states. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1983, 45:513-523.
101. Schweitzer M, Ordonez L., Douma B. Goal setting as a motivator of unethical behavior. Academy of Management Journal 2004, 47(3):422-432.
102. Schelling T.C. The intimate contest for self-command. The Public Interest 1980, 60:94-118.
103. Schelling T.C. Choice and consequence: Perspectives of an errant economist 1984, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
104. Sen A.K Rational fools: A critique of the behavioral foundations of economic theory. Philosophy and Public Affairs 1977, 64:317-345.
105. Shefrin H., Thaler R.H. The behavioral life-circle hypothesis. Economic Inquiry 1988, 26:609-643.
106. Sherman S.J. On the self-erasing nature of errors of prediction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1980, 39:211-221.
107. Shiv B., Fedorikhin A. Heart and mind in conflict: The interplay of affect and cognition in consumer decision making. Journal of Consumer Research 1999, 26(3):278-292.
108. Shweder R.A., Haidt J. The future of moral psychology: Truth, intuition and the pluralist way. Psychological Science 1993, 4:360-365.
109. Shu, L. L., Gino, F., & Bazerman, M. H. (2009). Dishonest deed, clear conscience: Self-preservation through moral disengagement and motivated forgetting. Harvard Business School Working Paper.
110. Simon H.A. Search and reasoning in problem solving. Artificial Intelligence 1983, 21:7-29.
111. Snyder C.R., Swann W.B. Behavioral confirmation in social interaction from social perception to social reality. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 1978, 14:148-162.
112. Snyder C.R., Swann W.B. Hypothesis testing processes in social interaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1978, 36:1202-1212.
113. Sonenshein S. The role of construction, intuition, and justification in responding to ethical issues at work: The sense making-intuition model. Academy of Management Review 2007, 32(4):1022-1040.
114. Spranca M., Minsk E., Baron J. Omission and commission in judgment and choice. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 1991, 27:76-105.
115. Stanovich K.E., West R.F. Individual differences in reasoning: Implications for the rationality debate. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 2000, 23:645-665.
116. Staw B.M., Ross J. Understanding escalation situations: Antecedents, prototypes, and solutions. Research in organizational behavior 1987, Vol. 9:39-78. JAI Press, Greenwich, CT.
117. Strotz R.H. Myopia and inconsistency in dynamic utility maximization. Review of Economic Studies 1956, 23:165-180.
118. Swann W.B., Read S.J. Self-verification processes: How we sustain our self-conceptions. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 1981, 17:351-372.
119. Tenbrunsel A.E. Misrepresentation and expectations of misrepresentation in an ethical dilemma: The role of incentives and temptation. Academy of Management Journal 1998, 41(3):330-339.
120. Tenbrunsel A.E., Messick D.M. Sanctioning systems, decision frames, and cooperation. Administrative Science Quarterly 1999, 44:684-707.
121. Tenbrunsel A.E., Messick D.M. Ethical fading: The role of self deception in unethical behavior. Social Justice Research 2004, 17(2):223-236.
122. Tenbrunsel A.E., Smith-Crowe K. Ethical decision-making: Where we have been and where we are going. Academy of Management Annals 2008, 2:545-607.
123. Tenbrunsel A.E., Smith-Crowe K., Umphress E.E. Building houses on rocks: The role of the ethical infrastructure in organizations. Social Justice Research 2003, 16(3):285-307.
124. Tenbrunsel A.E., Wade-Benzoni K.A., Messick D.M., Bazerman M.H. Understanding the influence of environmental standards on judgments and choices. Academy of Management Journal 2000, 43:854-866.
125. Tetlock E.P., Kristel O., Elson B., Green M., Lerner J. The psychology of the unthinkable: Taboo trade-offs, forbidden base rates, and heretical counterfactuals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 2000, 78:853-870.
126. Thaler R.H Toward a positive theory of consumer choice. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 1980, 1:39-80.
127. Thaler R.H., Shefrin H. An economic theory of self-control. Journal of Political Economy 1981, 89:392-406.
128. Trevino L.K., Weaver G.R., Reynolds S.J. Behavioral ethics in organizations: A review. Journal of Management 2006, 32(6):951-990.
129. Trope Y., Fishbach A. Compensatory self-control processes in overcoming temptations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 2000, 79:493-506.
130. Trope Y., Liberman N. Temporal construal and time-dependent changes in preference. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 2000, 79:876-889.
131. Trope Y., Liberman N. Temporal construal. Psychological Review 2003, 95:3-15.
132. Vallone R.P., Griffin D.W., Lin S., Ross L. Overconfident prediction of future actions and outcomes by self and others. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1990, 58:582-592.
133. Wade-Benzoni K.A. Thinking about the future: An intergenerational perspective on the conflict and compatibility between economic and environmental interests. American Behavioral Scientist 1999, 42:1393-1405.
134. Wade-Benzoni K.A. A golden rule over time: Reciprocity in intergenerational allocation decisions. Academy of Management Journal 2002, 45:1011-1028.
135. Wade-Benzoni K.A. Maple trees and weeping willows: The role of time, uncertainty, and affinity in intergenerational decisions. Negotiation and Conflict Management Research 2008, 1(3):220-245.
136. Wade-Benzoni K.A., Tost L.P. The egoism and altruism of intergenerational behavior. Personality and Social Psychology Review 2009, 13:165-193.
137. Weick K.E. Sensemaking in organizations 1995, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA.
138. Wilson J.Q. The moral sense 1993, Free Press, New York.
139. Wilson T.D., Schooler J.W. Thinking too much: Introspection can reduce the quality of preferences and decisions. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology 1991, 60(2):181-192.
140. Winston G.C. Addiction and backsliding: A theory of compulsive consumption. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 1980, 1:295-324.
141. Woodzicka J.A., LaFrance M. Real versus imagined gender harassment. Journal of Social Issues 2001, 57:15-30.
142. Zhong C.B., Liljenquist K. Washing away your sins: Threatened morality and physical cleansing. Science 2006, 313(Sept):1451-1452.
143. Zimbardo P.G., LaBerge S., Butler L.D. Psycho physiological consequences of unexplained arousal: A posthypnotic suggestion paradigm. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 1993, 102:466-473.
144. Zuroff D.C., Colussy S.A., Wielgus M.S. Selective memory and depression: A cautionary note concerning response bias. Cognitive Therapy and Research 1983, 7(3):223-232.