Ethics Test 2 Review

2 Cases Regarding Emotions

"A Managerial In-Basket Study of the Impact of Trait Emotions on Ethical Choice" "Non-rational Process in Ethical Decision Making" ("Emotionally Rational")

What they are studying in "The Effects of Anticipated Regret on the Whistleblowing Decision"

-Looking at role of emotional trait (regret) when you whistle blow -concluded emotions keep people from speaking out.

Themes in "Exit and Voice: Organizational Loyalty and Dispute Resolution Strategies"

-Were not looking for unethical companies -*Hirschman's asserts that when confronting workplace problems people will either exit or voice their opinion. Loyalty is a god determinant of which one someone will choose. -*Investigation of 2 businesses (conventional vs. collectively-run organizations) in 3 different industries

What are some Heuristics and Biases? in "Non-rational Process in Ethical Decision Making" ("Emotionally Rational")

-Availability heuristic: permits people to approximate frequency on the basis of how easily the target comes to mind, but more memorable events are not necessarily more frequent -Representativeness heuristic: people estimate the likelihood of an event by how similar it is to a conceptual prototype -confirmation bias -self-serving bias lies at the heart of conflict of interest, a situation in which professionals possess an interest that could impair obligations Affect and Conflict -Personal loyalty may be more important than ethical principles in making decisions

Conclusion of "The Effects of Anticipated Regret on the Whistleblowing Decision"

-showed how much regret one would feel and the source of regret *-individuals will recognize the emotional costs that could come with a decision to sit back and do nothing about a wrongdoing situation when they are made salient to these effects beforehand *-individuals feel more justified in blowing the whistle on highly intense nonfinancial situation that they do on highly intense financial situations -making inaction affects more salient to employees can trigger different responses

Conclusion of "An Empirical Analysis of the Ethical Reasoning of Tax Practitioners"

-suggests that something in the tax practice environment causes principled reasoning to be used less by tax practitioners in their environment -the difference between revenue and private sector practitioners tells us that tax knowledge and experience do not influence the moral reasoning -may be due to a socialization effect

Conclusion of "The Enduring Phenomena of Moral Muteness"

o Fear of impairing one's career led significantly to muteness o Internal whistleblower procedures must possess strong independent and external representation or revealing one's concerns=death warrant (in their job/the whole sector) o Doubt of the effectiveness of hotlines Arthur Anderson reports 60% of the responding companies that had hotlines reported no usage of them because there was an aversion to whistleblowing on colleagues

What were the courses of actions in "A Managerial In-Basket Study of the Impact of Trait Emotions on Ethical Choice"?

o Incorporate emotional awareness into efforts to maintain an ethical climate (make people more aware of their decision process) o Increase awareness of the impact of different emotions on different decision types

4 Types of Moral Problems

1) Genuine Dilemma - one is unsure as to what one ought to do, but has the will and the ability to what is right 2) Compliance Problem - one knows what the moral obligations are but experiences difficulty in fulfilling them 3) Moral Laxity - one acknowledges a general moral duty but given that there is an indefinite range of way to fulfill this duty is unsure as to what exactly ought to be done and fails to take serious steps toward pursuit of the general duty 4) No-problem Problem - one knows what the moral obligations are and has the will and the ability to fulfill them

What are susceptible to intuitive and affective influences? in "Non-rational Process in Ethical Decision Making" ("Emotionally Rational")

1) Multiple relationships-psychologist refrain from taking on a professional role when interests or relationships could reasonably be expected to 2) Risk Management-people tend to overattribute behavior of others to stable, consistent internal personality characteristics and underappreciate the role of situational factors 3) Training and Supervision-helping students and trainees become aware of their own contributions to ethical reasoning, on the basis of their own values, motivations, and virtues

Two types of Analyses that were conducted in "The Effects of Anticipated Regret on the Whistleblowing Decision"

1) Primary Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) - used predicted regret scores as a dependent variable - yielded two way treatment actions 2) Logistic ANOVA - three-way interaction using presence/absence of regret description -basically, people think about regret differently when it comes to blowing the whistle or staying silent

Kitchner's two levels of moral reasoning (two go together)vs Hiadt's model in "Non-rational Process in Ethical Decision Making" ("Emotionally Rational")

1) an intuitive level - automatic, prereflective responses based upon knowledge and experience guide much of ordinary moral thought and ethical action 2) a critical -evaluation level - enhances, directs, evaluates, and defends ethical decisions - consists of reasoned judgements based upon philosophical theories, ethical rules, guidelines, standards, and principles 2) Haidt -rather than reaching moral judgements through reasoning and reflection, people grasp moral truths automatically in a manner similar to perception, and moral intuitions lead to moral judgments -moral judgment is the product of moral intuition and is followed by moral reasoning

Factors that explain moral muteness in "The Enduring Phenomena of Moral Muteness"

1) the need to maintain good relations in the employing organization - need for "harmony" 2) potential threat to efficiency-moral talk seen to be anti-problem-solving; obscuring a difficult decision, but needed to be made 3) displaying uneasiness about particular organizational practices could or would threaten personal advancement

Two theories suggesting why people stay silent in "The Effects of Anticipated Regret on the Whistleblowing Decision" (exaggerate regret)

1. Decision Avoidance:-avoiding decisions to regulate their emotional state -anticipated regret associated with making a decision, individuals may prefer to regulate their emotions by avoiding decisions all together 2. Affective Forecasting:-people are not accurate at prediction how much pleasure/pain they will experience or how long it will last -individuals focus too much on the anticipated event and fail to consider all of the other events that will affect their well-being in the future -impact bias: people overestimate the duration and intensity of their emotional reactions to the future event -individuals fail to anticipate how quickly they will cope with a negative event ex) whistleblowing

Measuring Levels of Moral Reasoning in DIT test in "An Empirical Analysis of the Ethical Reasoning of Tax Practitioners"

1. Pre-conventional level -individual focuses on himself -considers himself removed from normal rules and expectations from society -behavior is motivated by person's desire to avoid punishment or because the outcome is in his favor 2. Conventional level -individual is concerned about family, society, and welfare of others -loyalty to wider community 3. Post-conventional level -"principled level of reasoning" -individual is concerned about other in society -will act on behalf of others even it means breaking the rules of law -not all individuals reach this ---People can move through different stages based on context and organization

3 treatment variables in "The Effects of Anticipated Regret on the Whistleblowing Decision"

1. salience to regret (action or inaction) 2. moral intensity (high or low) 3. wrongdoing type (financial or non financial) all three play a role in whistle blowing decision

Conclusion of "Exit and Voice: Organizational Loyalty and Dispute Resolution Strategies"

Bette understanding of Hirschman's original approach -those in high-loyalty work places were more likely to express voice -those in low-loyalty work places were more likely to engage in toleration strategies -worker cooperative members' greater ideological commitment made them, ironically, more loyal and more likely to become frustrated and consider leaving -the coal mining industry had high exit costs (coal mining is part of their identity) -therefore, exit was not an option

Give an example of a case in "The Enduring Phenomena of Moral Muteness"

Exhibit 1: Consequences of a Moral Vacuum -exported goods being artificially classified to reduce the level of import duties in the overseas country -dodging import taxes Exhibit 2: Expressing Concern, But "We're Not Whistleblowers" (a) -an accountant became concerned when revenue numbers became were falsely identified -the accountant left the duties up to those higher up -cynicism Exhibit 3: Expressing Concern, But "We're Not Whistleblowing" (b) -same accountant in (a), just a year before -expressed concern about the numbers through a letter, and felt they had done all they could -they knew that the chief executive must be a party in an illegal budget Accounting reasons for not making public stands on issues: -could have invoked a great deal of publicity that would have damaged their career prospects -involved the accountants in making accusations of misconduct which could have been difficult to prove *behavior compounded by poorly defined roles and responsibilities makes floating responsibilities a recurring issue in some organizations, particularly highly bureaucratized ones Exhibit 4: The Revealing of an Individual's Organizational Impotency -accountant for a charity had no intention of whistleblowing -dodged taxes for the charity Exhibit 5: Doing Wrong to Do Right -accountant reclassified its capital expenditures to help a hospital's budget and patients -"damned if I do and damned if I don't" felt trapped in his decision Exhibit 6: Multiple Causes for Concern, But Set in a Climate of Fear -fear of loss of employment

What did "A Managerial In-Basket Study of the Impact of Trait Emotions on Ethical Choice" find?

Hypothesis 1: Emotions will account for more variance in ethical choices that have interpersonal outcomes than organizational. Hypothesis 2a/b: Positive/negative emotions will account for significant variance in ethical choices. Hypothesis 3: Active emotions will account for greater variance in ethical choices than passive emotions (ALL 3 TRUE) -positive emotions had more active responses -active positive emotions= better EDM -both negative + positive emotions may be associated with more ethical choices -Discrete>Global

3 Hypotheses in "An Empirical Analysis of the Ethical Reasoning of Tax Practitioners"

Hypothesis 1: Tax practitioners will employ lower levels of moral reasoning with EDM than non-specialists. (false) -lower levels of reasoning found in professionals vs. social contexts arise from the professional involvement or the practitioners rather than the context itself. Hypothesis 2: the moral reasoning level of practitioners will be lower than it was in a social context, but there will be no difference in the levels of moral reasoning involved for non-specialists. (true) -two types of tax practitioners 1. private sector practitioners (manage, and try to minimize, clients' tax liability) 2. revenue practitioners (collect tax to fund activities for common good) Hypothesis 3: When considering tax context ethical dilemmas, private sector tax practitioners will employ a lower level of moral reasoning than revenue employees (TRUE)

Conclusion of "Non-rational Process in Ethical Decision Making" ("Emotionally Rational")

• Limiting EDM to rational deliberation ignores the true nature of difficult dilemmas and fails to see the often competing emotions and conflicting institutions • A complete account of EDM integrates emotional sensitivity, personal values, contextual forces, and intuitive responses with rational analysis to fully gauge complex situations • Psychologists must integrate empirical knowledge with ethical precepts to act ethically