Lisa Shu, Organizational Behavior PhD

Thesis Co-chairs: Max Bazerman and Daniel T. Gilbert

Essays on Ethics: Antecedents and Consequences

My dissertation examines the antecedents and consequences of unethical behavior. Through laboratory and field experiments, I investigate the psychological costs of unethical behavior for the individual and propose ways to curtail individual and organizational dishonesty through increasing ethical saliency. I also examine ways to promote more ethical decision-making over the long term for individuals and organizations.

People routinely engage in dishonest acts without feeling guilty about their behavior. When and why does this occur? Across four studies, people justified their dishonest deeds through moral disengagement and exhibited motivated forgetting of information that might otherwise limit their dishonesty (Shu, Gino, & Bazerman, 2011).

Dissonance theory has established that actions and beliefs are flexible, and that beliefs will bend to preserve consistency with actions. Four studies conducted reveal that actions and beliefs have a third conspirator in memory (Shu & Gino, working paper). Honest and dishonest behaviors yield asymmetric consequences in memory. In four studies, participants were given the opportunity to behave dishonestly, and thus earn undeserved money, by over-reporting their performance on an ability-based task. Before the task, they were exposed to moral rules. Across studies, we demonstrated that cheaters demonstrate moral forgetting relative to control and honest participants only after committing dishonesty (but not before), and only for rules of moral relevance (but not for all rules in general). Furthermore, moral forgetting appears to be an implicit process resulting from reduced accessibility of moral concepts in memory.

Once people behave dishonestly, they are able to morally disengage and forget moral rules, setting off a downward spiral of future bad behavior and ever more lenient moral standards. Yet, this slippery slope can be forestalled with simple measures such as honor codes that increase people's awareness of ethical standards (Mazar, Amir, & Ariely, 2008). Increasing moral saliency by having participants read or sign an honor code significantly reduced unethical behavior and prevented subsequent moral disengagement (Shu, Gino, & Bazerman, 2011).

We hypothesize that signing on the dotted line brings the self into clearer view, and that activating one's self-concept can change people's behavior for the better. Surprisingly subtle cues that activate the self can lead to surprising effects on consequent behavior. Evidence from four studies suggest that simply asking for a signature at the start of a task as opposed to at the end promotes truthful reporting and curtails dishonesty (Shu, Mazar, Gino, Ariely, & Bazerman, working paper). This intervention has particular relevance for transactions that rely on honest self-reports, such as filing taxes, claiming business expenses, or reporting billable hours. These transactions assume individual honesty, and departures from honesty can lead to significant economic losses for at least one party. Using both field and lab experiments, we find that signing on the dotted line shifts the moral gaze inward, raises the saliency of ethical standards, and promotes more ethical actions going forward.

Recent research has documented an alarming phenomenon: even ethical behavior can lead to unethical costs. Once one behaves in a moral way (or even merely imagines or recalls past moral behavior), one subsequently feels licensed to behave less ethically immediately afterwards (e.g., Merritt, Effron, & Monin, 2010). But what happens over the course of time over many stages of decision making? Does good behavior in ethical dilemmas deplete or replenish our moral wells? When does flexing our moral muscle deplete us, and when does it strengthen us?

Because ethical dilemmas often require self-control in order to resist unethical temptations, morality may function as a muscle: exercising moral judgment in the face of temptation could lead to short-term fatigue and license one to act less ethically immediately afterwards. However, over a longer time horizon, moral decision-making could actually be the practice of a skill rather than a deposit or withdrawal from a balance of moral credits. A muscle is fatigued in the short term after exercise, but it becomes strengthened in the long term because of the fatiguing exercise. By giving people the opportunity to flex their moral muscle and observing whether or not it is strengthened over sequential rounds of decision-making, I can test the effects of moral licensing and consistency predictions over time to bring better resolution to the existing debate. Both predictions can be correct over different time horizons.

If morality indeed resembles a muscle, then actively creating opportunities for individuals and organizations to flex their moral muscles could be the societal prescription for a positive shift in ethical standards. Tversky and Kahneman's work on heuristics and biases come with the warning that "the adoption of a decision frame is an ethically significant act" (1981, p. 458). Populating an individual or organization's daily choice set with decisions of moral significance may have measurable significant spillover effects on future moral behaviors.

Back to Students on the Job Market