Master thesis, MSc Human Resource Management University of Groningen, Faculty of Economics and Business
June 23, 2013
Henriëtte Zijlstra
Student Number: S2232421 Walstraat 6
9711 VS Groningen tel: +31(0)6-44077679
e-mail: h.zijlstra.6@student.rug.nl
Supervisor:
Dr. J. Jordan
Second Assessor:
Dr. L.B. Mulder
Acknowledgement: I would like to thank my supervisor Jennifer Jordan for all of her help, feedback and valuable support during the process of writing this thesis.
THE MODERATING ROLE OF PERSPECTIVE TAKING ON MORAL DISENGAGEMENT AND UNETHICAL DECISION-MAKING
ABSTRACT
This study investigated how moral disengagement influences unethical decision- making and whether perspective taking moderates this relationship. The participants (N = 74) took part in an online study and had to do multiple tasks. I used a two condition experimental design. Participants were randomly assigned to a high perspective taking condition or a low perspective taking condition. The results showed no relationship between the overall scale of moral disengagement and unethical decision-making, nor did they show that perspective taking moderated this effect. However, the study did show that Moral Justification and Euphemistic
Labeling, which are two subscales of moral disengagement, were positively related to unethical decision-making. Thus, individuals high on Moral Justification or
Euphemistic Labeling were more likely than individuals low on these attributes to make unethical decisions. I discuss the implications of these results for theory and practice.
2. THEORY 5
2.1 Moral Disengagement 5
2.2 Moral Disengagement and Unethical Decision-making 7
2.3 Perspective Taking 9
2.4 Perspective Taking: A Moderating Effect 10
3. METHODS 11
3.1 Participants 11
3.2 Design 12
3.3 Measures 13
4. RESULTS 15
4.1 Manipulation Check 15
4.2 Descriptive Statistics 16
4.3 Hypotheses Testing 16
4.3 Additional Analyses 18
5. DISCUSSION 19
5.1 Summary of Results 20
5.2 Theoretical and Practical Implications 21
5.3 Limitations & Future Directions 22
5.4 Conclusion 24
REFERENCES 26
APPENDIX A 34
APPENDIX B 36
APPENDIX C 37
APPENDIX D 39
1. INTRODUCTION
In September 2011 a Dutch professor became discredited for committing fraud during his research. At the time, the professor, working for a university in The Netherlands, was responsible for a study where he concluded that vegetarians were more altruistic and sociable than meat eaters. In actuality, he invented the data for this research. An inquiry into his work found that at least 55 of the 130 investigated articles and ten theses that he was supervising contained fabricated data (Deira, 2011).
According to the committee chairman, it was especially remarkable that in the scientific world, no other professionals had ever rung the alarm about odd or suspicious things in the publications of the professor. The committee concluded that the lack of a critical scientific culture had led to the result that the professor was able to commit fraud for many years. Besides that, it is rare that collected data gets examined and verified by colleagues. According to sources, the professor was a collegial, caring professional who was respected and trusted by his students and colleagues. These trustworthy characteristics of the professor are a plausible reason why most students and colleagues were not suspicious. The professor clearly showed unethical decision-making by committing fraud on a large scale and also by betraying his students and colleagues by taking advantage of their trust in him. How is a man, perceived as trustworthy and caring, able to engage in such severe unethical decision- making? For most people, making such unethical decisions would induce a state of psychological tension, which results in an uncomfortable feeling (Inuaimi, Robert &
Maruping, 2010). However, there is no evidence that this professor experienced these negative emotions. It is possible that the professor reduced the dissonance between his behavior and his beliefs that one should act ethically, a process called moral disengagement.
Scholars have shown that the individual’s way of processing, framing, or understanding information plays an important role in unethical decision-making (Kern
& Chugh, 2009; Tenbrunsel & Messic, 1999). Behavioral ethics literature suggests that there should be more attention paid to the cognitive processes involved in unethical decision-making (Tenbrunsel & Messick, 2004; Tenbrunsel & Smith- Crowe, 2008). Therefore, I propose that an important cognitive process involved in
unethical decision-making is an individual’s tendency to morally disengage. Moral disengagement is defined as a process that constructs justifications for immoral behavior in order to avoid internal sanctions (Shulman, Cauffman, Piquero, & Fagan, 2011). I also propose that the ability to perspective take can reduce the effects of moral disengagement on unethical decision-making. For example, if the professor had thought about the possible consequences for his students, would this have reduced the likelihood of making such unethical decisions? In this thesis, I propose that perspective taking (especially when looked at in concert with moral disengagement) is an important factor that affects unethical decision-making.
2. THEORY
2.1 Moral Disengagement
Why do people engage in behavior that is inconsistent with their values or desired self-image? By the theory of cognitive dissonance, a state of psychological tension is induced when one acts in inconsistent ways, which then leads to undesirable feelings.
People who have these feelings will try to reduce the dissonance between their behavior and their beliefs. One way to do this is through moral disengagement. Moral disengagement is a tool to reduce this dissonance by making use of cognitive mechanisms that align one’s beliefs with one’s behavior (Inuaimi et al., 2010).
Bandura (1986) introduced the theory of moral disengagement as part of the broader social cognitive theory. Social cognitive theory claims that an individual exercises control over his or her own thoughts and behavior through self-regulatory processes (Bandura, 1986). The theory explains that individuals have developed personal standards of moral behavior that serve a self-regulatory role. These personal standards of moral behavior are guiding good behavior and deterring bad behavior because people use their personal standards to judge and monitor their own actions (Detert, Klebe, Trevino, & Sweitzer, 2008). According to Bandura (1999), moral disengagement is the key deactivation process of moral self-regulation. Moral disengagement is developed in order to explain how individuals are capable of taking part in human cruelties such as political and military violence (Bandura, 1990a, 1990b) without feeling distressed. Many scholars have used the work of Bandura (1999) to underpin their arguments about how cognitive processes can promote unethical decision-making in organizations (Detert et al., 2008).
Moral Disengagement Dimensions
There are eight interrelated moral disengagement dimensions that can disengage or deactivate moral self-regulation. These eight dimensions are: moral justification, euphemistic labeling, advantageous comparison, displacement of responsibility, diffusion of responsibility, disregarding or distorting the consequences, dehumanization, and attribution of blame (Bandura, 1986). Moral justification, advantageous comparison, and euphemistic labeling are three subscales that involve denial of disapproving behavior in such a way that it will increase its moral acceptability (Bandura, 1986). Nowadays, most people will agree that harming others is wrong. Moral justification, however, leads individuals to harm others in such a way that it appears as a morally justifiable act. For example, child labor can be justified by claiming that without offering these children this kind of work, these children would have been in more dangerous places to help their families earn some money.
Therefore, it is justifiable to contribute to child labor (Detert et al., 2008). When individuals use morally neutral language in order to make unacceptable or immoral behavior seem less harmful, it is called euphemistic language. An example of euphemistic language is lying to business competitors and afterwards calling it a misrepresentation of strategy (Safire, 1979). The third dimension, advantageous comparison, is comparing unethical actions with even more harmful behavior. Thus, advantageous comparison is making the actual unethical decision appear to be acceptable (Detert et al., 2008).
Displacement of responsibility, diffusion of responsibility, and distortion of consequences are three subscales that occur when the effects of harmful actions are concealed or distorted by an individual (Bandura, 1986). When individuals implement their behaviors as actions resulting from assignments from an authoritative figure (e.g., my boss told me to do this), they may displace responsibility for their behavior to the authoritative and deny own accountability for their actions. Diffusion of responsibility is a subscale that often appears in adverse group behavior because none of the individual group members feel personally accountable for the unwanted behavior. Distorting the consequences is a subscale where individuals disconnect their harmful actions or behavior from self-sanctions (Detert et al., 2008).
The last two subscales are dehumanization and attribution of blame. These two dimensions reduce identification with the targets of detrimental acts by disengaging
moral sanctions (Detert et al., 2008). Attribution of blame, for example, assigns responsibility of events to the victims themselves; they deserve what is happening to them (Bandura, 2002). The eight moral disengagement dimensions are conceptualized by Bandura as a set of cognitive propensities that could influence the way individuals make ethical decisions. This theory argues that all individuals differ in their tendency of making use of cognitive moral disengagement dimensions when they have to make an ethical decision (Moore, Detert, Trevino, Baker, & Mayer, 2012).
2.2 Moral Disengagement and Unethical Decision-making
Moral disengagement will not transform considerate people into selfish ones.
Feeling morally disengaged is a gradual process. Individuals will make first a small unethical decision, whereby they feel little discomfort. When certain actions are repeated over time, the self-punishment will be reduced. Therefore, the level of unethical decision-making will increase because little unethical decisions do not feel that unethical anymore. This process ultimately leads to decisions or behavior that an individual normally would not even consider engaging in. Decisions considered as abhorrent are now executed with little fear or self-censorship. Practices, that normally would not be executed, become thoughtlessly routinized. The interaction between moral thinking, action, affect, and social reception leads to a personal transformation (Bandura, 2002). In the statement of the professor, featured at the introduction of this thesis, the professor said that the pressure of modern science, where the ambition level is high and the competition for scarce resources are also high, became too much for him to handle. He felt the pressure to score high and to publish a lot. To deal with this pressure he made up his own results to realize desired outcomes. By doing this, his world was, according to the professor, perfect, just as he expected, predicted, and dreamed. The professor was not suddenly deciding to fabricate all of his data. This was an evolving process. I can imagine that the first time the professor committed fraud, it was very awkward and scary. But as time passed, and nobody questioned the results, his self-punishment probably diminished. This factor was likely compounded by the fact that the professor started gaining highly desired rewards and accolades for his work. The professor was showing moral disengagement by convincing himself that at that time, that what he did was the right thing to do. He was dealing with pressure and was, according to him, not harming others (and actually helped others, like his PhD students) because these were the results that everybody wanted. Moral
disengagement is increasing unethical decision-making because people, that are morally disengaged, will reason in such a way that guilt or self-censorship will not occur when considering a decision. The gap between internal standards and planned behavior reduces the dissuasive effect that normally will stop individuals from executing unethical decisions (Bandura, Barbaranelli, Caprara, & Pastorelli, 1996;
Duffy, Aquino, Tepper, Reed, & O’leary-Kelly, 2005).
In conclusion, moral disengagement is an individual difference variable in cognitively processing unethical decision-making that allows, those inclined to morally disengagement, to make unethical decisions without feeling distressed (Bandura, 1990a, 1990b, 1999, 2002). The way individuals process, frame, and understand information that is relevant to ethically-meaningful decisions plays an important role in the ethical choices that people make (Kern & Chugh, 2009;
Tenbrunsel & Messick, 1999). Unethical decisions are illegal or morally unacceptable decisions to the larger community (Jones, 1991). Moral disengagement increases unethical decision-making because when people are considering whether or not to engage in the unethical act, while being morally disengaged, these people get disconnected from the guilt or self-censure that would have prevented them from doing the act. This gap between internal standards and considered behavior reduces the self-deterrents that normally block individuals from carrying out the unethical actions (Bandura et al., 1996; Duffy, Aquino, Tepper, Reed, & O’leary-Kelly, 2005).
Moore et al., (2012) demonstrated that the tendency to morally disengage is a significant predictor of unethical decision-making in organizations. Additionally, there is research that shows that the higher the individual is morally disengaged, the more easily their unethical decision-making can be predicted (Detert et al., 2008; Shu, Gino, & Bazerman, 2011; Barsky, Islam, Zyphur, & Johnson, 2006). There is empirical evidence supporting the relationship between moral disengagement and unethical decision-making. For example, there is found at children that moral disengagement is increasing their antisocial behavior, like aggression, and that it decreases pro-social behavior, like helpfulness (Bandura, 2001; Bandura, Underwood,
& Fromson, 1975). Moral disengagement is shown to be positively related in military attacks (McAlister, Bandura, & Owen, 2006). Further, Duffy and colleagues (2005) found in their study a positive relationship between moral disengagement and unethical decision-making by the positive relationship between moral justification and
co-worker undermining. Therefore, I predict that moral disengagement is positively related to unethical decision-making.
Hypothesis 1: Moral disengagement is positively related to unethical decision- making, such that people make more unethical decisions when they feel highly morally disengaged.
2.3 Perspective Taking
The professor of the introduction showed unethical decision-making by committing fraud. His decisions were not only influencing his own career but also that of others. The fraud meant a ‘personal tragedy’ for the students who were entrusted to the professor (Commission-Levelt, 2011). These students will need to delete publications from their resumes because the data is considered fraudulent. Was the value of other people’s well-being not important to the professor? Had he not forecasted the reactions, emotions, or the feelings of the parties involved? Had he not thought about the consequences for their career? The question is whether or not the professor failed to take the perspective of those he worked with. And if he had, would that have kept him from committing the fraud.
Perspective taking is defined as taking into account the feelings of others by imagining yourself in their same situation and imagining how they must feel (Myyrya, Juurjärvy, Pesso, 2010). Perspective taking can be divided into two parts. The first part is the capacity to identify and understand the feelings of others. The second part of perspective taking is defined as the ability to recognize and understand the thought processes of another (Krebs & Sturrup, 1974; Oswald, 1996; Underwood & Moore, 1982). Perspective taking can be used in two different ways. Firstly, it can be used as a tool to increase pro-social behavior. When someone sees another’s suffering, perspective taking will result in empathic feelings (Batson & Moran, 1999). However, perspective taking can also be used in egoistic terms. A chess player is a good example of using perspective taking in egoistic terms. While playing chess, the players focus on the opponent’s thoughts, strategy and motives. They do this to predict the actions of their opponents so that they can anticipate these actions in their own strategy of winning the game (Trötschel, Loschelder, Hüffmeier, Schwartz,
Gollwitzer, 2011). In conclusion, perspective taking, “allows an individual to anticipate on the behavior and reactions of others’’ (Davis, 1983, p.115).
By trying to understand another’s point of view, people start to think about their own traits and feelings. This information about themselves will be used in making inferences about others. This process is called egocentric projection and often leads to more positive evaluation towards other individuals because the other is seen as more similar to oneself and shares the positive attributes of the self (Davis, Conklin, Smith,
& Luce, 1996; Galinksy & Moskowitz, 2000). Kohlberg (1984) found that
perspective taking is the principle of moral judgement development. Eisenberg, Zhou,
& Kollar (2005), found that perspective taking is an age-related process among adolescences to early adulthood in pro-social moral judgement development. Further, individuals high on pro-social behavior are found to be sympathetic and good in taking the perspective of others (Carlo & Randall, 2002). Also in line with these findings is that social perspective taking opportunities promote moral judgement development (Gibbs, Basinger, & Grime, 2007). The explanations and findings of perspective taking, takes a positive direction towards ethical decision-making.
Therefore, I suggest that perspective taking has a negative effect on unethical decision-making.
Hypothesis 2: Perspective taking is negatively related to unethical decision- making, such that people make less unethical decisions when they are high on perspective taking.
2.4 Perspective Taking: A Moderating Effect
When an individual is high on perspective taking, this means that she can imagine herself in ‘someone else’s shoes’ (Batson et al., 2003). Perspective taking is focusing on the counterpart’s thoughts and interests instead of their emotions and feelings (Epley, Caruso, & Bazerman, 2006). I predict that when people are high on moral disengagement and therefore more likely to make unethical decisions, perspective taking will weaken this relationship. That is, when highly morally disengaged people are high on perspective taking, their unethical decisions will decrease.
A universal religious-based regulation for ethical decision-making is the Golden Rule, ‘’Do unto others as you would have them do unto you’’ (e.g., Matthew 7:12).
This golden rule is implying a form of perspective taking where a person would place him or herself in the situation of another. Imagining what treatment you like to receive is providing a standard for how people should treat others. This leads to consideration of other people’s interests, as well as an individual’s own interest (Batson, Lishner, Carpenter, Dulin, Harjulsola-Webb, Stocks, Gale, Hassan, &
Sampat, 2003). According to Karniol and Miller (1981) it is very important for individuals to imagine themselves in another person’s situation in order to make ethical decisions. According to Davis (1994) and Ickes (1993), perspective taking is fundamental for social relationships and interactions, as well as it is an important part of pro-social behavior (Batson, Ahmad, Lishner, & Tsang, 2002). Therefore, I suggest that perspective taking is moderating the relationship between moral disengagement and unethical decision-making, such that perspective taking will reduce the relationship between moral disengagement and unethical decision-making.
Hypothesis 3: Perspective taking will moderate the relationship between moral disengagement and unethical decision-making. Specifically, the positive relationship between moral disengagement and unethical decision-making will be weakened when an individual is high on perspective taking.
Figure 1 Conceptual model: The moderating role of perspective taking on moral disengagement and unethical decision-making.
3. METHODS 3.1 Participants
The survey was distributed amongst students from the Faculty of Economic and Business at the University of Groningen and via my personal social network. The participants were from different study programs and from diverse countries (i.e., Netherlands, China, Serbia, Germany, Taiwan, Finland), but most of the participants
Perspective taking
Moral
disengagement Unethical decision-‐making
H2
H1 H3
were Dutch (83.8%). In the end, 74 participants provided usable data for this research.
Of these participants, 64.9% were male and 35.1% were female. The age of the participants ranged from 18 to 60 years old, with an average of 22.38 years (SD = 5.14). With respect to the educational level, 79.9% had their bachelor as highest education, 10.8% were in or had done a pre-MSc and 8.1% an MSc degree, and only one of the participants (1.4%) had another educational level.
3.2 Design
I used a two condition experimental design. Participants were randomly assigned to the high perspective taking condition or the low perspective taking condition. Of the 74 participants, 39 were assigned to the low perspective taking condition (52.7%) and 35 participants were assigned to the high perspective taking condition (47.3%). In the manipulation assignment, both groups of participants were shown the same black and white photograph of an older man sitting on a chair near a newspaper stand (see Appendix B).
Procedure
The perspective taking of the participants was manipulated. For this manipulation, I used the method of Galinksy, Wang, and Ku (2008). The perspective taking
manipulation task can be found in Appendix B. The participants were randomly assigned to one of the two perspective taking conditions. The manipulation started with asking the participants to write down a short narrative essay, around five sentences, about a typical day in the life of the individual in the photograph. After that, the two different conditions also got different further instructions about how they should write the short essay. The participants in the high perspective taking group were instructed ‘You should adopt the perspective of the individual in this photograph and imagine a day in the life of this individuals as if you were that person, looking at the world through his eyes and walking through the world in his shoes. Try to imagine how the individual feels about his daily experiences and how these experiences affect his life’. The participants in the low perspective taking condition were told the
following ‘Previous research has demonstrated that thoughts and impressions are consistently influence by prejudices, and therefore you should actively try to avoid thinking about the photographed target in such a manner. Try to be as objective as possible when imagining what has happened to this person and what his daily day is
like. Don’t get caught up in imagining what this person has been through or how the person feels’.
The test started with asking the participants different questions in order to measure how morally disengaged the participants were. The independent variable, moral disengagement, is an individual difference between all participants and had no influence on whether the participants got assigned to the high or low perspective taking condition.
Dependent Variable
After the perspective taking manipulation the participants were presented with some ethical dilemmas and were asked, ‘Please indicate how likely it is that you would engage in the behavior described’. To masque the purpose of the test, I inserted some random scenarios that had nothing to do with unethical decision-making
dilemmas as filler items.
3.3 Measures
The survey was conducted in English and was completed online.
Moral Disengagement
Moral disengagement was measured by using the moral disengagement scale from Detert et al. (2008). This scale consisted of 24-items that measured the 8 dimensions of moral disengagement: moral justification, euphemistic labelling, advantageous comparison, and displacement of responsibility, diffusion of responsibility, distortion of consequences, attribution of blame, dehumanization. This scale included three items for each of the eight dimensions of moral disengagement. A sample item of moral justification was, “It is alright to fight to protect your friends.” Participants were asked about their level of agreement for each item on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = Strongly disagree; 5 = strongly agree). The internal reliability of the scale was acceptable (Cronbach’s alpha = .72). All 24-items used to measure moral disengagement are included in Appendix A.
Unethical Decision-making
Unethical decision-making was measured by the unethical decision-making scale of Detert et al. (2008). This scale consisted of eight scenarios that described a
situation where unethical decision-making was practiced. Beside these eight scenarios, the test included six scenarios to masque the purpose of the survey.
Participants were asked how likely it was that they would engage in the decision- making described, for example “You work in a fast-food restaurant in the city centre of Groningen. It’s against policy to eat food without paying for it. You came straight from classes and are therefore hungry. Your supervisor isn’t around, so you make something for yourself and eat it without paying.” Participants answered the items on 7-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (very unlikely) to 7 (very likely). The internal reliability for this scale is poor (Chronbach’s alpha = .541). All items are presented in Appendix C.
Manipulation Check
To check whether the manipulation had an effect on the participant’s perspective taking, I included three items that measured if the participants were able to get into a mind-set of high or low perspective taking. These items asked: To what extend did you try to; (1) imagine what the individual might be thinking, feeling, and
experiencing; (2) imagine what you might be thinking, feeling, and experiencing; (3) be objective and emotionally-detached when writing about the person in the
photograph. I reverse-coded item three because the first two items were about high perspective taking and the third item was about low perspective taking. The
participants answered the items on 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 7 (very much so). The internal reliability of the scale was unacceptable (Chronbach’s alpha = .406). Excluding the third item significantly improves the reliability of this scale (Chronbach’s alpha = .62), thus, I used only the first two items as my
manipulation check for perspective taking.
Social Desirability
To check whether or not participants tended to give socially desirable answers within this survey, I included the Social Desirability Scale from Ballard (1992), which is a short form of the Marlow-Crowne Social Desirability Scale. The scale consisted of 11 statements that had to be answered with ‘True’ or ‘False’ (see Appendix D). A sample item was, “I sometimes feel resentful when I don’t get my way.” Six items were reverse-coded (items 1, 3, 5, 6, 8 and 10) in the scale because these six items
were about being low on social desirability. The reliability of the scale is unacceptable (Chronbach’s alpha = .316).
Control Variables
I included two control variables because these variables have been found to predict unethical decision-making in other research. For example, males and females have been found to make different ethical decisions (Schminke, Ambrose, & Mills, 2003).
Also, McAllister (2001) found that female subjects were less morally disengaged than male subjects. Therefore, the first control variable within this survey was gender. The second control variable included was social desirability. In more sensitive topics, data get often contaminated with socially- desirable answers of the respondents (Mick, 1996). This means that participants tend to describe themselves in favourable terms.
4. RESULTS
4.1 Manipulation Check
To check if the manipulation was successful, I conducted a univariate ANOVA to assess if the answers of the participants were in line with the perspective taking condition they were in. There were 39 participants assigned to the low perspective taking condition and 35 participants to the high perspective taking condition. The manipulation check items were two questions to find out how much the participants took into account feelings and emotions in the essay assignment. Participants in the two conditions did not significantly differed on these items (F(1,72) = 3.2, p = .08).
Specifically, people in the high perspective taking condition reported a higher score on this measure (M = 5.21, SD = 1.35) than people in the low perspective taking condition (M = 4.67, SD = 1.28). This result shows that participants in the low
perspective taking condition were unable to avoid taking the perspective of the man in the photo. They were instructed to not take into account the feelings of the man showed in the photograph but were eventually unable to succeed in this. This means that perspective taking was not successfully manipulated. I discuss the implications of this failure in my General Discussion.
4.2 Descriptive Statistics
In Table 1, information about means and standard deviations of the variables moral disengagement, perspective taking, and unethical decision-making can be found. In addition, Pearson’s correlations were calculated to measure the direction and strength between the variables. As is showed in Table 1, a positive correlation was found between unethical decision-making and gender (r = -.24, p < .05). This suggests that, on average, men (= 1) are more likely than women (= 2) to make unethical decisions.
Table 1: Exploration of the data (means, SD, and Pearson correlations)
Notes. N=74. Gender coded 1 = male, 2 = female. Perspective taking coded (1 = high, 2 = low). MD = moral disengagement, Unethical Dm. = unethical decision-making.
* Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).
** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
4.3 Hypotheses Testing
In this research there are three hypotheses to be tested. Hypotheses 1 predicts that there is a positive relationship between moral disengagement and unethical decision- making, such that individuals make more unethical decisions when they feel highly morally disengaged. Hypothesis 2 suggests that perspective taking has a positive effect on unethical decision-making, such that individuals make less unethical
decisions when they are high on perspective taking. And in Hypothesis 3, I examined if perspective taking moderates the relationship between moral disengagement and unethical decision-making. I expected that that the positive relationship between moral disengagement and unethical decision-making would be weakened when an individual was high on perspective taking. To test my hypotheses I used the linear regression analysis and added the control variables gender and social desirability to my model.
Variables M S.D. 1 2 3 4
1. Gender
1.35 0.48 2. Social Desirability
1.53 0.17 .02 3. Perspective Taking
-0.05 1.01 -.19 -.05 4. MD
2.38 0.36 -.21 .08 -.04 5. Unethical Dm.
4.29 0.82 -.24* .12 .11 .17
Hypothesis 1 suggested that moral disengagement had a positive relationship with unethical decision-making. Looking at the regression analysis in Table 2, we see that moral disengagement has no effect on unethical decision-making (B = .24, SE = .27, t
= .88, p = .38). Therefore, Hypothesis 1 is rejected.
Table 2: Regression analysis results
Note. N = 74. Unstandardized regression coefficients are presented.
**p < .01 , *p < .05
The second hypothesis proposes that perspective taking has a positive influence on unethical decision-making. Resulting from the regression analysis, we see that there is no relationship between perspective taking and unethical decision-making (B = .39, SE = .65, t = .60, p = .56). Thus, Hypothesis 2 is rejected.
Hypothesis 3 suggests that perspective taking moderates the relationship between moral disengagement and unethical decision-making such that the positive
relationship between moral disengagement and unethical decision-making gets
weaker when perspective taking is high. In order to test if Hypothesis 3 is supported, I regressed unethical decision-making on perspective taking, moral disengagement, and the interaction term of perspective taking and moral disengagement (using gender and social desirability as controls). As shown in Table 2, the interaction term is non- significant (B = -.14, SE = .27, t = -.51, p = .61). This means that perspective taking does not moderate the relationship between moral disengagement and unethical decision-making. Thus, Hypothesis 3 is rejected.
Unethical Decision-making
Predictor
B SE t p
Controls
Gender -.37 ,21 -1.72 .09
Social desirability .63 .56 1.12 .27
Main effect
Moral disengagement .24 .27 .88 .38
Perspective taking .39 .65 .60 .55
Two-way interaction Moral disengagement x
Perspective taking -.14 .27 -.51 .61
4.3 Additional Analyses
The following results are outside the purview of my hypothesis; however still relevant to my investigation. I looked at the eight moral disengagement dimensions individually in order to see if they were related to unethical decision-making. There were three dimensions relating to unethical decision-making; Moral Justification (r = .267, n = 74, p = .02), Euphemistic Labelling (r = .336, n = 74, p = .003), and Dehumanization (r = .275, n = 74, p = .02).
Firstly, I used Moral Justification as the independent variable. The results showed that using this subscale of moral disengagement, two of the three hypotheses would have been rejected. As shown in Table 3, only Hypothesis 1, which predicted that moral disengagement was positively related to unethical decision-making, was marginally-significant (B = .28, SE = .14, t = 1.95, p = .056).
Table 3: Regression analysis results with Moral Justification
Note. N = 74. Unstandardized regression coefficients are presented.
**p < .01 , *p < .05
I then entered Euphemistic Labelling as the measure of moral disengagement in my regression model. The results of this analysis are shown in Table 4. The analysis showed that Euphemistic Labelling was positively related to unethical decision- making (B = .35, SE = .14, t = 2.56, p = .013). This means that in support of Hypothesis 1, this dimension of moral disengagement was related to unethical decision-making.
Unethical Decision-making
Predictor
B SE t p
Controls
Gender -.24 ,21 -1.16 .25
Social desirability .76 .55 1.39 .17
Main effect
Moral Justification .28 .14 1.95 .06
Perspective Taking .29 .38 -.56 .56
Two-way interaction Moral Justification x
perspective taking -.08 .14 -.61 .55
Table 4: Regression analysis results with Euphemistic Labelling
Note. N = 74. Unstandardized regression coefficients are presented.
**p < .01 , *p < .05
Lastly, I included Dehumanization as the independent variable in my regression model. The results of this analysis are shown in Table 5. Again, only Hypothesis 1 was (marginally) supported (B = .21, SE = .11, t = 1.95, p = .055). This means that in the support of Hypothesis 1, this dimension of moral disengagement is related (albeit marginally) to unethical decision-making.
Table 5: Regression analysis results with Dehumanization
Note. N = 74. Unstandardized regression coefficients are presented.
**p < .01 , *p < .05
5. DISCUSSION
This study aimed to understand whether moral disengagement and the perspective taking of individuals had an effect on their unethical decision-making. In particular, I studied if being high on perspective taking moderates the relationship between moral
Unethical Decision-making
Predictor
B SE t p
Controls
Gender -.30 ,20 -1.48 .14
Social desirability -.11 .57 -.20 .84
Main effect
Euphemistic Labeling .35 .14 2.56 .013
Perspective Taking -.21 .38 -.56 .58
Two-way interaction Euphemistic Labeling x
perspective taking .10 .14 .70 .49
Unethical Decision-making
Predictor
B SE t p
Controls
Gender -.30 ,21 -1.44 .16
Social desirability .68 .54 1.26 .21
Main effect
Dehumanization .21 .11 1.95 .06
Perspective Taking .25 .28 .88 .38
Two-way interaction Moral Justification x
Dehumanization -.07 .11 -.69 .49
disengagement and unethical decision-making such that participants were making less unethical decisions. The current research analyzed the viability of perspective taking as a strategy for moderating the relationship between moral disengagement and unethical decision-making by manipulating perspective taking.
5.1 Summary of Results
Starting with the main effect between moral disengagement and unethical decision- making, this study tried to show that there is a positive relationship between moral disengagement and unethical decision-making. However, when looking at the overall moral disengagement scale, the data did not support this hypothesis and showed a non-significant effect between moral disengagement and unethical decision-making.
Thus, according to these results, if an individual is high on moral disengagement this does not necessarily mean that he or she will make more unethical decisions. This is in contradiction with the founded literature, which suggested that it is likely that moral disengagement and unethical decision-making have a positive relationship with each other. Also, there are articles that explain unethical decision-making by
underlying psychological processes (Tenbrunsel & Messick, 2004; Messick &
Bazerman, 1996). Bandura (1986) argued that individuals will make unethical
decisions when their ethical self-regulatory processes are deactivated, which normally prevent individuals from acting unethically. This collective process is called moral disengagement. However, I did find support for my hypothesis when looking at the dimensions individually. Specifically, Moral Justification, Euphemistic Labelling, Dehumanization, which are single dimensions of moral disengagement, were found to be directly related to unethical decision-making. These findings would suggest that moral disengagement does affect immoral decision-making but this is only true for specific subscales of moral disengagement.
In the second hypothesis, this research suggested that perspective taking had a positive influence on ethical decision-making. Such, that individuals high on
perspective taking would make less unethical decisions. In the research of Eisenberg and Morris (2001) they explain that high perspective taking is contributing in
empathic concern. Also, there is strong evidence that perspective taking opportunities, like perspective taking experiences with friends, fosters moral judgement
development (Gibs et al., 2007). Furthermore, it is found that individuals who are
high on perspective taking and empathy are more capable to report conflicting demands, complex real-life dilemmas and social-pressure dilemmas (Myyry &
Helkama, 2007). Despite these findings, which predict that perspective taking is related to unethical decision-making in a positive way, this relation is not confirmed within this study. This is likely due to the fact that my perspective taking
manipulation was unsuccessful. I discuss potential reasons for this below. Therefore, the second hypothesis was rejected.
In the third and final hypothesis of this research, I expected that perspective taking would moderate the relationship of moral disengagement to unethical decision- making. I did not found evidence to support this assumption. Therefore, the third hypothesis was rejected, as well.
5.2 Theoretical and Practical Implications
I tried to understand how moral disengagement influences the propensity to make unethical decisions. However, when looking at the full moral disengagement scale, the data of this research was not supporting the relationship between moral disengagement and unethical decision-making. I measured moral disengagement by measuring the eight dimensions of moral disengagement in a 24-item scale. The scale showed that moral disengagement had no relationship with unethical decision-
making, though Moral Justification, Euphemistic Labelling, and Dehumanization as individual subscales did show a relationship with unethical decision-making. The results from this scale can be used for future research. In future research it can be used, for instance, in trying to understand how moral disengagement dimensions influence the propensity to make unethical decisions.
The current data showed that men are more likely than women to make unethical decisions. It might be interesting to see how gender differences, in unethical decision- making, can be managed. These findings are related to different impacts of moral disengagement to unethical decision-making and have important implications for understanding why individuals and gender differences are engaging in discreditable acts.
I started this study with the idea of finding out how moral disengagement is affecting unethical decision-making in order to see how unethical decisions could be reduced. This could be very interesting for organizations since the division of labor and bureaucratic structures are ideal situations for the moral disengagement
dimensions to occur (Bandura, 1986). For example, ‘‘whistleblowing’’ is a type of moral justification. Or huge layoffs can be called ‘‘rightsizing’’ by managers and is a form of Euphemistic Labeling. And seeing the workforce as ‘‘machinery’’ is used as a type of dehumanization in organizations. This research is interesting since moral disengagement is relevant in order to understand unethical decision-making in today’s organizations (Detert et al., 2008).
5.3 Limitations & Future Directions
There are several limitations in this study. Starting with the representation of our sample. Most participants were students, which can raise concerns about
generalizability (Gordon, Slade, & Schmitt, 1986). However, it is also argued that samples consisting mostly of students are not less representative than general adults of the general population. Also, student samples could be equally useful in
understanding psychological processes (e.g., Greenberg, 1987). Besides, there are research findings that show that adult and student samples on psychological processes are quite similar (e.g., Locke, 1986). Nonetheless, I would recommend using more diverse samples in future studies to establish generalizability. Another limitation towards the sample of this research is the sample size. In the end only 74 participants provided useful data, which is not a very large sample.
A second limitation of this research is the reliability of the variables. The reliability of the manipulation check scale, as well as the reliability of the social desirability scale were unacceptable. Also, the reliability of the unethical decision-making scale scored poorly. Even when items were excluded, there was no improvement found on the reliability. As these were established scales with acceptable reliability reported in other studies (e.g., Detert et al., 2008; Todd et al., 2011; Galinsky et al., 2008) these results are quite concerning. One possibility is that for the participants in this study, the scales were presented in their second language. Thus, it is possible that they did not fully understand the items. Alternatively, it is possible that these scales do not apply outside of the culture in which they were created (i.e., the USA). Another
possibility is that participants did not pay attention when completing these scales.
This possibility is enhanced by the fact that participants completed this study outside of a controlled setting. Therefore, it is possible that they were distracted while completing the measures and thus, their answers did not correspond to their actual feelings.
Another limitation is the manipulation of the perspective taking of the participants.
The participants got randomly assigned to the high perspective taking condition or the low perspective taking condition. I included a manipulation check within the test to find out how well the participants were able to adjust themselves into the condition ascribed. Initially I wanted to exclude participants based on their answers to the manipulation check. The two manipulation questions were: A) To what extent did you try to imagine what the individual might be thinking, feeling and experiencing? and B) To what extent did you try to imagine what you might be thinking, feeling, and experiencing if you were the individual? They answered these on a 7-point Likert scale. Participants assigned to the low perspective taking condition were instructed to be objective towards the individual in the photograph, while participants assigned to the high perspective taking condition were instructed to imagine themselves as if they were the individual in the photograph. If the manipulation worked well, it would be expected that the participants in the low perspective taking condition would answer the two questions with a three or lower and the participants in the high perspective taking condition would answer with a four or higher. However, if I would exclude participants based on this criterion, then this research would be based on only 45 participants instead of 74. This is clearly showing that the manipulation did not work well. The manipulation especially did not work well for participants in the low perspective taking condition. Initially there were 39 participants assigned to the low perspective taking condition, however, the result showed that only 11 of them answered the manipulation check as expected. This was not the case for the high perspective taking condition; 35 participants were assigned to this condition and 34 participants answered the questions as expected. This unsuccessful manipulation could explain why I did not find the predicted results. It might also suggest that it is very difficult for people to not take the perspective of someone they are observing. As social beings, it is perhaps human nature to try to think and feel as those around us.
This would mean that it is not that my high perspective taking manipulation was
necessarily more successful, but rather that perspective taking is individuals’ default behaviour. Future research is needed to answer this question.
In addition, I only looked at moral disengagement prior to unethical decision- making in this research. In earlier research they also looked at moral disengagement preceding unethical actions (e.g., “People do not ordinarily engage in reprehensible conduct until they have justified to themselves the rightness of their actions”;
Bandura, 1996, p. 335). However, the dimensions of moral disengagement can be aroused retrospectively after an unethical decision (Anand, Ashfort, & Joshi, 2005).
Individuals questioning their unethical decisions later found themselves resorting to, for example, diffusion of responsibility or another dimension to justify their unethical decision. Future research is needed to explore these dimensions and their timing. It might be also interesting to see whether and how subsequent reasoning of an act is feeding prior actions of moral disengagement in the future i.e. researching whether there is a self-reinforcing cycle or not in moral disengagement (Detert et al., 2008). I also suggest that future research might look at how moral disengagement is placed within the ethical decision-making process and at the involved consciousness level.
This research was not looking at why some individuals are high on moral disengagement and others are low on it. However, while looking in the interests of organizations it would be helpful to learn more about whether some individuals are more vulnerable to being morally disengaged than others. When organizations get more insight in this occurrence, perhaps they can focus on resources that will improve the decision-making process of employees or individuals who are more disposed to moral disengagement.
5.4 Conclusion
We read about ethical dilemmas in newspapers everyday, which made me wonder why some individuals are more likely to engage in unethical decision-making than others. I therefore conducted a research that focuses on unethical decision-making by looking at moral disengagement and perspective taking. Clearly, much more research is needed in order to understand the dimensions of moral disengagement, unethical decision-making, and correspondingly, how individual differences and contextual factors influence these variables. The current research provides a good starting point
to extend research on these topics. The results of this research show that better measure methods should be developed to manipulate the perspective taking effectively especially for manipulation low perspective taking.
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APPENDIX A
24-item Scale for Measuring Moral Disengagement
Moral justification
1. It is all right to fight to protect your friends.
2. It’s ok to steal to take care of your family’s needs.
3. It’s ok to attack someone who threatens your family’s honor.
Euphemistic Labelling:
4. Sharing test questions is just a way of helping your friends.
5. Talking about people behind their backs is just part of the game.
6. Looking at a friend’s homework without permission is just “borrowing it.”
Altruistic Language
7. Damaging some property is no big deal when you consider that others are beating up people.
8. Stealing some money is not too serious compared to those who steal a lot of money.
9. Compared to other illegal things that people do, taking some things from a store without paying for them is not very serious.
Displacement of Responsibility
10. If people are living under bad conditions, they cannot be blamed for behaving aggressively.
11. If someone is pressured into doing something, they shouldn’t be blamed for it.
12. People cannot be blamed for misbehaving if their friends pressured them to do it
Diffusion of Responsibility
13. A member of a group or team should not be blamed for the trouble the team caused
14. If a group decides together to do something harmful, it is unfair to blame any one member of the group for it.
15. You can’t blame a person who plays only a small part in the harm caused by a group.
Distortion of Consequences
16. People don’t mind being teased because it shows interest in them.
17. Teasing someone does not really hurt them.
18. Insults don’t really hurt anyone.
Attribution of Blame
19. If someone leaves something lying around, it’s their own fault if it gets stolen.
20. People who are mistreated have usually done things to deserve it.
21. People are not at fault for misbehaving at work if their managers mistreat them.
Dehumanization
22. Someone who is offensive does not deserve to be treated like a human being.
23. It is ok to treat someone badly who behaves like a bastard.
24. Some people deserve to be treated like animals.
APPENDIX B Perspective Taking Manipulation
Condition 1: High perspective taking
You are now going to construct life-event details from visual information alone.
Please write down a short narrative essay, around 5 sentences, about a typical day in the life of the individual in the photograph. You should adopt the perspective of the individual in this photograph and imagine a day in the life of this individual as if you were that person, looking at the world through his eyes and walking through the world in his shoes. Try to imagine how the individual feels about his daily experiences and how these experiences affect his life.
Condition 2: Low perspective taking
You are now going to construct life-event details from visual information alone.
Please write down a short narrative essay, around 5 sentences, about a typical day in the life of the individual in the photograph. Previous research has demonstrated that thoughts and impressions are consistently influenced by prejudices, and therefore you should actively try to avoid thinking about the photographed target in such a manner.
Try to be as objective as possible when imagining what has happened to his person and what his daily day is like. Don’t get caught up in imagining what this person has been through or how the person feels.
