See No Evil: When We Overlook Other People's Unethical Behaviour

My notes from See No Evil: When We Overlook Other People's Unethical Behaviour, written by Francesca Gino and Don A. Moore, both from Tepper Business School, Carnegie Mellon University, and Max H. Bazerman from Harvard Business School, Harvard University...

Introduction

This paper explores those circumstances in which people see no evil in others' unethical behaviour. Specifically, it explores the tendency to:

1. Overlook the unethical behaviour of others when we recognise the unethical behaviour would harm us
2. Ignore unethical behaviour unless it clear, immediate, and direct
3. Ignore unethical behaviour when ethicality erodes slowly over time
4. Assess unethical behaviours only after the unethical behaviour has resulted in a bad outcome

There are systematic and predictable circumstances under which people look the other way when others engage in unethical conduct. A critical input is the concept of bounded ethicality which refers to situations in which people make decision errors that not only harm others, but are inconsistent with their own consciously espoused beliefs and preferences - decisions they would condemn upon further reflection or greater awareness.

When does it become easier for us to overlook other's unethical behaviour? When that behaviour serves our own interest.

Why does it matter whether people condone others' unethical behaviour? Scandals such as Enron, WorldCom, and Arthur Anderson, which cost trillions of dollars, would not have occurred if leaders and employees had not overlooked the unethical behaviour of their colleagues.

Motivated blindness

• Psychologists know that individuals who have a vested self-interest in a situation have difficulty approaching the situation without bias, even when they view themselves to be honest.
• Research suggests that people evaluate evidence in a selective fashion when they have a stake in reaching a particular conclusion or outcome. Humans are biased to selectively see evidence supportive of the conclusion they would like to see.
• Example: accounting firms and auditors (e.g. Enron and Arthur Anderson).

Failure to see through indirectness

• Research suggests that people do not view indirect harms to be as problematic as direct harms. In certain studies, participants significantly discounted the unethicality if the focal firm acted through an intermediary.
• As a result, individuals and organisations intentionally create opaqueness when they believe the public may have ethical qualms with their actions.
• Example: a major pharmaceutical sells the rights of a new cancer drug to a smaller pharmaceutical, knowing that they will increase the price, to avoid negative attention.

Unethical behaviour on a slippery slope

• Research on visual perception has shown that people frequently fail to notice gradual changes that occur right in front of their eyes.
• Investigating the implications of "change blindness" shows that individuals are less likely to notice others' unethical behaviour when it occurs in small increments than when it occurs suddenly.
• Scandals such as Enron and WorldCom illustrate the "boiling frog syndrome" - if you put a frog in a pot of warm water and raise the temperature gradually, by the time the frog realises it is too hot, it will be cooked.

Thinking there's no problem - until something bad happens

• People tend to evaluate unethical acts only after the fact - once the unethical behaviour has resulted in a bad outcome, but not during the decision process.
• Research shows that people judge the wisdom of decision makers based on the outcomes they obtain. Bringing this research to ethical context, we find that people too often judge the ethicality of actions based on whether harm follows, rather than on the ethicality of the choice itself.
• One problem with this it that it can lead us to blame people too harshly for making sensible decisions that have unlucky outcomes.
• Consider why more people questioned Bush's administration's pre-war tactics, such as unfounded claims of evidence of weapons of mass destruction, once the difficulties in Iraq became more obvious.

Conclusions

• Human awareness is bounded: unconsciously, our minds imperfectly filter information when dealing with ethically relevant decisions. As a result of these limits, we routinely ignore accessible and relevant information.
• The clarity of evidence on bounded awareness and bounded ethicality places the burden on schools to make students aware of the possibility that even good people sometimes will act unethically without their own awareness.
• In addition, leaders must understand these processes and make the changes necessary to reduce the effects of our limitations. Considering the critical information that is typically excluded from decision problems should become a habit. Executives should be held responsible for the harms that their organisations predictably create, with or without intentionality or awareness.