(Press-News.org) To maintain the idea that we are moral people, we tend to lie or cheat only to the extent that we can justify our transgressions. New research suggests that situational ambiguity is one such avenue for justification that helps us preserve our sparkling self-image. Findings from two related experiments show that people are apt to cheat on a task in favor of their self-interest but only when the situation is ambiguous enough to provide moral cover.
The research, conducted by psychological scientists Andrea Pittarello, Margarita Leib, Tom Gordon-Hecker, and Shaul Shalvi, at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel, is published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
"Whether in sensational corporate scandals or more ordinary transgressions, individuals often violate ethical principles to serve their self-interest. Our results suggest that such ethical failures are mostly likely to occur in settings in which ethical boundaries are blurred," the researchers of the study write.
"In ambiguous settings, people's motivation directs their attention towards tempting information, shaping their self-serving lies," says Pittarello.
Using an "ambiguous dice" paradigm, the researchers had participants look at a computer screen that displayed the rolls of a total of six dice, while their gaze was monitored using eye-tracking equipment. The participants were asked to report the number rolled for the die appearing closest to a designated target on the screen.
In one condition, participants were told that they would be paid according to the value they reported observing -- thus, reporting a die roll of 6 would result in a bigger payoff than a die roll of 5. The participants could maximize their income by reporting a 6 for every trial, but then their cheating would be obvious and difficult to justify. The researchers hypothesized that participants would be tempted to cheat when they could justify their self-serving 'mistakes' by reporting having seen the outcome of the die roll that was actually second closest to the designated target.
In another condition, participants were told they would be paid for the accuracy of their report. Mistakes in this condition could only harm participants' potential payout, so the researchers hypothesized that the value of the second closest die would not influence participants' reports. This condition served to rule out other factors that could potentially lead people to misreport the rolls.
Overall, the participants reported the correct value in about 84% of the pay-for-report trials and about 90% of the pay-for-accuracy trials. Importantly, the mistakes made in the pay-for-report trials showed a self-serving pattern: Participants were more likely to report the second closest die when it was tempting (i.e., higher) than when it was not.
And data on eye gaze showed that a tempting value on the second closest die did grab participants' attention on pay-for-report trials; in these cases, they spent relatively more time gazing at the tempting die and less time gazing at the nearest die.
In a second experiment, the researchers varied the distance between the nearest die and the target to see whether more ambiguous configurations -- in which the target was very close to being in the middle between two dice -- would lead to more self-serving mistakes.
Again, the data showed that the temptation of a higher number on the second closest die influenced participants' reports when they were compensated according to the number reported rather than the accuracy of the report.
But the results also showed that ambiguity played an additional role in guiding behavior: Participants were more likely to report a tempting value from the second closest die when the target appeared relatively close to the middle than when it was clearly closer to the first die. As predicted, this effect did not emerge when participants were paid according to their accuracy.
"These results indicate that situations in which ambiguity is high are especially prone to self-serving interpretation of available information. If you seek to boost own or organizational ethical behavior - then reduce ambiguity and make things clear," says Shalvi.
INFORMATION:
This research was supported by the Israel Science Foundation (Grant No. 914/14, awarded to S. Shalvi).
All data and materials have been made publicly available via Open Science Framework and can be accessed at osf.io/d2ncs (pilot experiment and Experiment 1) and at osf.io/473gq (Experiment 2). The plans for the experiments were preregistered at Open Science Framework (pilot experiment and Experiment 1: osf.io/d2ncs; Experiment 2: osf.io/473gq). The complete Open Practices Disclosure for this article can be found at http://pss.sagepub.com/content/by/supplemental-data. This article has received badges for Open Data, Open Materials, and Preregistration. More information about the Open Practices badges can be found at https://osf.io/tvyxz/wiki/view/ and http://pss.sagepub.com/content/25/1/3.full.
For more information about this study, please contact: Andrea Pittarello at andreap@post.bgu.ac.il or Shaul Shalvi at sshalvi@bgu.ac.il.
The article abstract is available online: http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/04/09/0956797615571018.abstract
The APS journal Psychological Science is the highest ranked empirical journal in psychology. For a copy of the article "Justifications Shape Ethical Blind Spots" and access to other Psychological Science research findings, please contact Anna Mikulak at 202-293-9300 or amikulak@psychologicalscience.org.
A common spinal disease could be the result of some people's vertebrae, the bones that make up the spine, sharing similarities in shape to a non-human primate. The research, published in the open access journal BMC Evolutionary Biology, suggests that the relatively quick evolution of the ability to walk on two legs may have had a substantial impact on modern human health.
Humans are more commonly afflicted with spinal disease than non-human primates, and one widely discussed explanation for this is the stress placed on the spine by bipedal locomotion. This research backs ...
UK scientists may have uncovered a natural way of avoiding the use of pesticides and help save plants from attack by recreating a natural insect repellent.
Scientists from Cardiff University and Rothamsted Research have, for the first time, created tiny molecules which mirror a natural occurring smell known to repel insects.
The scientists were able to make similar smelling insect repellent molecules, by providing the enzyme, ((S)-germacrene D synthase), which creates the smell, with alternative substrate molecules.
The effectiveness of the smell or perfume to ...
Referring patients with unexplained swollen neck glands for specialist investigations could help to avoid some of the thousands of deaths each year from lymphoma, a type of cancer.
New research led by the University of Exeter Medical School, published today in the British Journal of General Practice, has concluded that persistent enlarged lymph glands, found in the neck, should be referred for further investigation when detected in clinic.
Each year in the UK, more than 14,500 people in are diagnosed with a form of lymphoma, and nearly 5,000 die from the disease, with ...
Researchers from the University of Cambridge have captured the first three-dimensional images of a live embryo turning itself inside out. The images, of embryos of a green alga called Volvox, make an ideal test case to understand how a remarkably similar process works in early animal development.
Using fluorescence microscopy to observe the Volvox embryos, the researchers were able to test a mathematical model of morphogenesis - the origin and development of an organism's structure and form - and understand how the shape of cells drives the process of inversion, when ...
Barcelona, Spain: Results from a randomised controlled trial to compare the use of permanent radioactive implants (brachytherapy) with dose-escalated external beam radiotherapy in patients with prostate cancer show that the men who received brachytherapy were twice as likely to be cancer-free five years later.
Presenting these results at the 3rd ESTRO Forum in Barcelona, Spain, today (Monday) Professor James Morris, from the Department of Radiation Oncology, Vancouver Cancer Centre, British Columbia Cancer Agency (BCCA), Vancouver, Canada, will say that the ASCENDE-RT1 ...
Barcelona, Spain: Radiotherapy using protons can deliver more accurate treatment to a tumour while reducing the dose to surrounding tissue. However, in mobile organs such as the lung, precise targeting of the dose is difficult. Now researchers have succeeded in making a model of breathing movement that allows for the precise measurement of narrow beams to a dummy tumour by simulating the motion and physical properties of the chest anatomy in a model, the 3rd ESTRO Forum in Barcelona, Spain, will hear today (Monday).
Dr Rosalind Perrin, from the Centre for Proton Therapy ...
Millions of people are dying from common, easily treatable conditions like appendicitis, fractures, or obstructed labour because they do not have access to, or can't afford, proper surgical care, according to a major new Commission, published in The Lancet.
The Commission reveals that five billion people worldwide do not have access to safe and affordable surgery and anaesthesia when they need it, and access is worst in low-income and lower-middle income countries, where as many as nine out of ten people cannot access basic surgical care.
Just under a third of all deaths ...
The team led by Dr Sheena Cruickshank of the Faculty of Life Sciences and Professor Andy Brass from the School of Computer Science analysed 58 papers on research into inflammatory bowel disease published between 2000 and 2014. They found a wide variety in how methods were reported and that vital information about experiments were missing, meaning they couldn't be accurately reproduced in animal or human models.
In several instances the gender of the animal used wasn't recorded which can have a bearing on the result as female mice have a stronger immune response to males. ...
SAN DIEGO - New research shows that it doesn't take much for kids to be considered couch potatoes.
Kindergartners and first-graders who watched as little as one hour of television a day were more likely to be overweight or obese compared to children who watched TV for less than 60 minutes each day, according to a study to be presented Sunday, April 26 at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) annual meeting in San Diego.
Efforts to fight the childhood obesity epidemic have focused on getting kids to be more active. Previous studies have shown that children who watch ...
SAN DIEGO - Adults can have a bigger influence on youths growing up in poor, violent neighborhoods than they may realize, according to a study to be presented Sunday, April 26 at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) annual meeting in San Diego.
Researchers found that males living in Philadelphia who identified supportive relationships with parents and other adult family members were significantly less likely to report that they were involved in violence or had witnessed violence.
"This is good news. In neighborhoods with high levels of community violence and few ...
