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Blind Spots: Why We Fail to Do What's Right and What to Do about It
When confronted with an ethical dilemma, most of us like to think we would stand up for our principles. But we are not as ethical as we think we are. In Blind Spots , leading business ethicists Max Bazerman and Ann Tenbrunsel examine the ways we overestimate our ability to do what is right and how we act unethically without meaning to. From the collapse of Enron and corruption in the tobacco industry, to sales of the defective Ford Pinto, the downfall of Bernard Madoff, and the Challenger space shuttle disaster, the authors investigate the nature of ethical failures in the business world and beyond, and illustrate how we can become more ethical, bridging the gap between who we are and who we want to be.
Explaining why traditional approaches to ethics don't work, the book considers how blind spots like ethical fading--the removal of ethics from the decision--making process--have led to tragedies and scandals such as the Challenger space shuttle disaster, steroid use in Major League Baseball, the crash in the financial markets, and the energy crisis. The authors demonstrate how ethical standards shift, how we neglect to notice and act on the unethical behavior of others, and how compliance initiatives can actually promote unethical behavior. They argue that scandals will continue to emerge unless such approaches take into account the psychology of individuals faced with ethical dilemmas. Distinguishing our "should self" (the person who knows what is correct) from our "want self" (the person who ends up making decisions), the authors point out ethical sinkholes that create questionable actions.
Suggesting innovative individual and group tactics for improving human judgment, Blind Spots shows us how to secure a place for ethics in our workplaces, institutions, and daily lives.
Explaining why traditional approaches to ethics don't work, the book considers how blind spots like ethical fading--the removal of ethics from the decision--making process--have led to tragedies and scandals such as the Challenger space shuttle disaster, steroid use in Major League Baseball, the crash in the financial markets, and the energy crisis. The authors demonstrate how ethical standards shift, how we neglect to notice and act on the unethical behavior of others, and how compliance initiatives can actually promote unethical behavior. They argue that scandals will continue to emerge unless such approaches take into account the psychology of individuals faced with ethical dilemmas. Distinguishing our "should self" (the person who knows what is correct) from our "want self" (the person who ends up making decisions), the authors point out ethical sinkholes that create questionable actions.
Suggesting innovative individual and group tactics for improving human judgment, Blind Spots shows us how to secure a place for ethics in our workplaces, institutions, and daily lives.
204 pages, Paperback
First published February 28, 2011
155 people are currently reading
1305 people want to read
About the author
Max H. Bazerman
58 books137 followersMax H. Bazerman is the Jesse Isidor Straus Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School and the Co-Director of the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School. Max's research focuses on decision making, negotiation, and ethics. He is the author, co-author, or co-editor of twenty books and over 200 research articles and chapters. His latest book, The Power of Noticing: What the Best Leader See, is now available from Simon and Schuster.
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September 6, 2011
This is a great book about how people are much more unethical than they think they are. I'm an auditor, so thinking about what motivates people to act in less desirable ways is part of my job. The point of the book is that we tend to focus on corruption that is deliberate and intentional, but ignore unethical choices made everday that are unintentional, when we are confused by our ethical blind spots. The authors analyze major recent ethical lapses through this lens, such as Enron, steroids in baseball, and corporate misbehavior.
Below is a summary with many direct quotes from the book. I'm putting this together, mostly so I can remember what the heck their argument is, because it's so fascinating. I’m using their words, because they say it better than I could. They have a website too: http://www.blindspots-ethics.com.
This book explores the gap between how ethical we think we are and who we actually are. Ample evidence suggests that people who, in the abstract, believe they are honest and would never cheat, do in fact do so. And, they leave the experiment with their positive self-image intact. The authors, in extensive research, found most instances of corruption, and unethical behavior in general, are unintentional, a product of bounded ethicality and the fading of the ethical dimensions of the problem. More on those terms in a moment. The book also argues that, in order to understand ethics, researchers need to take a behaviorist view – seek to understand how people actually behave when faced with a decision.
So now those terms:
Bounded ethicality is related to bounded awareness, the common tendency to exclude important and relevant information from our decisions by placing arbitrary and dysfunctional bounds around our definitions of the problem. Just as our profit-focused work environments can keep us from seeing the ethical implications of our actions.
Ethical fading occurs when we remove ethics from our decision-making process, perhaps because we are focusing on organizational or other goals. As a result, we can act in a way that contradicts our ethical principles. This can be due to our survival instinct – avoid losses, get a bonus, look good. Once we have acted unethically, we engage in “ethical spinning”, ie everybody’s doing it; recollection bias, ie its someone else’s fault; and even changing our ethical standards.
We have an inflated perception of our own ethicality and a limited awareness of how our minds work. When we think about a decision, we believe we will act ethically because we think abstractly (see the forest). When we are faced with a decision, we act unethically because of details such as time, ease, need (see the trees). Most interestingly, when we look back on our decision, we believe we are ethical, even with proof to the contrary (see the forest). This is because we justify our decision, change the facts in our mind, or are simply convinced we are good people.
The book argues that we generally make decisions based on our quick, emotive reactions (much praised in Gladwell’s Blink); however, we are more likely to make unethical choices when we don’t engage in more conscious and thoughtful decision-making. The authors cite some studies. In simulations, people are more likely to shoot black than white innocent bystanders. People make different decisions when faced with two options to weigh and compare, rather than a single option. People engage in “in-group favoritism” – wanting to help out a friend or someone like them. People tend to be egocentric, and overestimate their contribution or fair share. People tend to first which choice benefits them the most, and then justify the preference on the basis of fairness by altering the importance of the attributes that affect what is fair. They act more unethically when data is less certain and they tend to discount the future. The authors argue, that to encourage fairness, when dividing up a pie, one person should be the “pie slicer” and the other should be the first to take a slice.
We also ignore unethical behavior in others, due to four main reasons. The first is “motivated blindness”. We are less likely to see it if seeing it would cause us harm. Motivations could be fear, incentives, organizational loyalty, and organizational culture. Examples are Germans under Hitler and Arthur Andersen. The second is “indirect blindness.” We are less likely to hold someone accountable if their action indirectly led to unethical action. So we don’t hold accountable a supervisor who delegates an unethical decision to a subordinate with clear instructions to “do whatever it takes.” The third is the “slippery slope”. We are less likely to notice if the process is incremental. An example is the SEC not noticing Bernie Madoff’s behavior. A fourth is valuing outcomes over process. We hold a drunk driver who killed someone to a different standard than one who didn’t. Related to this is the “identifiable victim effect”. We are more concerned with identifiable victims than statistical ones. An example is you are more likely to help a friend get a job than think about the qualified applicants who didn’t get the job because of your interference.
Reward systems intended to encourage ethical behavior can also go awry. Goal systems can encourage employees to:
1. Focus too narrowly on goals and neglect non-goal areas;
2. Engage in risky behavior;
3. Focus on extrinsic instead of intrinsic motivation;
4. Engage in more unethical behavior than they would otherwise.
The implementation of a compliance system can increase unethical behavior because it can change a decision from an ethical one to a business one – what is the cost vs benefit of compliance. When employees feel overly controlled, they may attempt to weaken, bypass, or trick the system. An organization should promote frameworks that highlight the ethical rather than the compliance dimensions of a decision.
Doing good can become a license to misbehave. People who work for “good” organizations, have positive moral self-image, or have been transparent about a conflict of interest are more likely to make an unethical choice. Organizations should make it more difficult for employees to mitigate unethical behavior through good deeds by setting a clear zero-tolerance policy and continually raising the bar for ethical behavior.
Formal controls are inferior to informal/social controls in an organization. As a result, formal systems that don’t reflect an organization’s values will have little impact. People will follow informal systems first. For example, Enron had a code of ethics that did little.
Why do we fail to fix corrupted institutions? The authors present three techniques used to institutionalize corruption:
1. Obfuscation and the encouragement of reasonable doubt. They explain “agnotology”: the cultural production of ignorance, used by big tobacco to question the heath effect of smoking.
2. The search for the smoking gun. The requirement for providing incontrovertible evidence a change is needed, for example the auditing profession.
3. Expressing shifting views of the facts. For example, after the Enron “smoking gun”, auditing firms argued over regulation changes and questioned whether it is worth the cost to fix the ethics problem.
Regarding the auditing profession, the authors argue that the current US audit system makes it “psychologically impossible”, for even the most honest auditors to make objective judgments. To create true independence requires:
1. Only provide auditing services to clients.
2. Auditing contracts should be of a limited duration, during which time the client cannot fire the auditor.
3. Companies cannot hire accountants who audited them.
From the authors’ perspective, Sarbanes-Oxley utterly failed to respond to the key flaws of the auditing industry. It did none of the above. It only prohibited some non-audit services. It required rotation of lead auditor, but not auditing firm. It permitted auditors to work for companies they audit.
The debate over climate change represents the general public’s tendency to discount the future and avoid even minor inconveniences hinders us from endorsing the actions of politicians who accept the need to inflict small costs in the present to avoid future catastrophe.
So how do you narrow the gap between who you think you are and who you are?
For yourself as an individual . . .
When preparing to make a decision: Thinking about what your motivation will be at the time of a decision makes you more likely to recognize that you will behave unethically. Prepare for the ethical questions you hope won’t be asked. Commit to acting ethically - our reluctance to walk away from a choice means those who publicly commit to a decision in advance are more likely to follow through.
When making an important decision: Do three tests.
1. Think abstractly: Focus on the abstract principles and values that you believe should guide the decision.
2. The “mom” test: ask yourself whether you would feel comfortable sharing your decision with your mom.
3. Construe it as a decision involving more than one option: “Should” self tends to dominate if choosing between two options. Reformulate the ethical dilemma into a choice between two options – the ethical choice and the unethical choice.
After your decision: Debrief with a friend or colleague who can play devil’s advocate.
To change an organization . . .
Identify the informal values: What pressures do employees feel and why? What ethical challenges do they face? What types of decisions does the organization actually reward? What qualities characterize those who make it to the top? Identify who really “runs the company”. Who is listened to, where does no-one want to work. What slogans and stories do employees repeat over and over? One company produced a video with whistleblowers who prevented the corporation from acting unethically who are now shown to hold senior positions. The importance of labeling, how are unethical behaviors described? Is it “lying” or “misrepresenting the facts”?
Pay attention to areas in the organization that are characterized by uncertainty, time pressure, short-term horizons, and isolation. In environments characterized by high uncertainty, individuals may downplay the ethical implications of a decision. Time pressure reduces the cognitive resources available to make “should” choices. Isolated individuals/groups tend to develop different norms.
How to change society . . .
1. Change the default option. Make the default the ethical choice, ie. organ donation, low energy use.
2. Improve the clarity of information to expose value trade-offs. The example given is change the reporting on gasoline efficiency from miles per gallon (MPG) to gallons per mile (GPM). Choosing to go from a 5 MPG car to a 10MPG car is not the same as going from 20 to 25MPG. A 10 MPG car uses twice as much gas as a 5 MPG car, but that isn’t true of 20 vs 25. MPG isn’t a linear relationship, but GPM is.
3. Increase the importance of future concerns by having a slight delay in implementation. This increases the “should” self in decisions, if you think the change won’t happen for a year or two.
Below is a summary with many direct quotes from the book. I'm putting this together, mostly so I can remember what the heck their argument is, because it's so fascinating. I’m using their words, because they say it better than I could. They have a website too: http://www.blindspots-ethics.com.
This book explores the gap between how ethical we think we are and who we actually are. Ample evidence suggests that people who, in the abstract, believe they are honest and would never cheat, do in fact do so. And, they leave the experiment with their positive self-image intact. The authors, in extensive research, found most instances of corruption, and unethical behavior in general, are unintentional, a product of bounded ethicality and the fading of the ethical dimensions of the problem. More on those terms in a moment. The book also argues that, in order to understand ethics, researchers need to take a behaviorist view – seek to understand how people actually behave when faced with a decision.
So now those terms:
Bounded ethicality is related to bounded awareness, the common tendency to exclude important and relevant information from our decisions by placing arbitrary and dysfunctional bounds around our definitions of the problem. Just as our profit-focused work environments can keep us from seeing the ethical implications of our actions.
Ethical fading occurs when we remove ethics from our decision-making process, perhaps because we are focusing on organizational or other goals. As a result, we can act in a way that contradicts our ethical principles. This can be due to our survival instinct – avoid losses, get a bonus, look good. Once we have acted unethically, we engage in “ethical spinning”, ie everybody’s doing it; recollection bias, ie its someone else’s fault; and even changing our ethical standards.
We have an inflated perception of our own ethicality and a limited awareness of how our minds work. When we think about a decision, we believe we will act ethically because we think abstractly (see the forest). When we are faced with a decision, we act unethically because of details such as time, ease, need (see the trees). Most interestingly, when we look back on our decision, we believe we are ethical, even with proof to the contrary (see the forest). This is because we justify our decision, change the facts in our mind, or are simply convinced we are good people.
The book argues that we generally make decisions based on our quick, emotive reactions (much praised in Gladwell’s Blink); however, we are more likely to make unethical choices when we don’t engage in more conscious and thoughtful decision-making. The authors cite some studies. In simulations, people are more likely to shoot black than white innocent bystanders. People make different decisions when faced with two options to weigh and compare, rather than a single option. People engage in “in-group favoritism” – wanting to help out a friend or someone like them. People tend to be egocentric, and overestimate their contribution or fair share. People tend to first which choice benefits them the most, and then justify the preference on the basis of fairness by altering the importance of the attributes that affect what is fair. They act more unethically when data is less certain and they tend to discount the future. The authors argue, that to encourage fairness, when dividing up a pie, one person should be the “pie slicer” and the other should be the first to take a slice.
We also ignore unethical behavior in others, due to four main reasons. The first is “motivated blindness”. We are less likely to see it if seeing it would cause us harm. Motivations could be fear, incentives, organizational loyalty, and organizational culture. Examples are Germans under Hitler and Arthur Andersen. The second is “indirect blindness.” We are less likely to hold someone accountable if their action indirectly led to unethical action. So we don’t hold accountable a supervisor who delegates an unethical decision to a subordinate with clear instructions to “do whatever it takes.” The third is the “slippery slope”. We are less likely to notice if the process is incremental. An example is the SEC not noticing Bernie Madoff’s behavior. A fourth is valuing outcomes over process. We hold a drunk driver who killed someone to a different standard than one who didn’t. Related to this is the “identifiable victim effect”. We are more concerned with identifiable victims than statistical ones. An example is you are more likely to help a friend get a job than think about the qualified applicants who didn’t get the job because of your interference.
Reward systems intended to encourage ethical behavior can also go awry. Goal systems can encourage employees to:
1. Focus too narrowly on goals and neglect non-goal areas;
2. Engage in risky behavior;
3. Focus on extrinsic instead of intrinsic motivation;
4. Engage in more unethical behavior than they would otherwise.
The implementation of a compliance system can increase unethical behavior because it can change a decision from an ethical one to a business one – what is the cost vs benefit of compliance. When employees feel overly controlled, they may attempt to weaken, bypass, or trick the system. An organization should promote frameworks that highlight the ethical rather than the compliance dimensions of a decision.
Doing good can become a license to misbehave. People who work for “good” organizations, have positive moral self-image, or have been transparent about a conflict of interest are more likely to make an unethical choice. Organizations should make it more difficult for employees to mitigate unethical behavior through good deeds by setting a clear zero-tolerance policy and continually raising the bar for ethical behavior.
Formal controls are inferior to informal/social controls in an organization. As a result, formal systems that don’t reflect an organization’s values will have little impact. People will follow informal systems first. For example, Enron had a code of ethics that did little.
Why do we fail to fix corrupted institutions? The authors present three techniques used to institutionalize corruption:
1. Obfuscation and the encouragement of reasonable doubt. They explain “agnotology”: the cultural production of ignorance, used by big tobacco to question the heath effect of smoking.
2. The search for the smoking gun. The requirement for providing incontrovertible evidence a change is needed, for example the auditing profession.
3. Expressing shifting views of the facts. For example, after the Enron “smoking gun”, auditing firms argued over regulation changes and questioned whether it is worth the cost to fix the ethics problem.
Regarding the auditing profession, the authors argue that the current US audit system makes it “psychologically impossible”, for even the most honest auditors to make objective judgments. To create true independence requires:
1. Only provide auditing services to clients.
2. Auditing contracts should be of a limited duration, during which time the client cannot fire the auditor.
3. Companies cannot hire accountants who audited them.
From the authors’ perspective, Sarbanes-Oxley utterly failed to respond to the key flaws of the auditing industry. It did none of the above. It only prohibited some non-audit services. It required rotation of lead auditor, but not auditing firm. It permitted auditors to work for companies they audit.
The debate over climate change represents the general public’s tendency to discount the future and avoid even minor inconveniences hinders us from endorsing the actions of politicians who accept the need to inflict small costs in the present to avoid future catastrophe.
So how do you narrow the gap between who you think you are and who you are?
For yourself as an individual . . .
When preparing to make a decision: Thinking about what your motivation will be at the time of a decision makes you more likely to recognize that you will behave unethically. Prepare for the ethical questions you hope won’t be asked. Commit to acting ethically - our reluctance to walk away from a choice means those who publicly commit to a decision in advance are more likely to follow through.
When making an important decision: Do three tests.
1. Think abstractly: Focus on the abstract principles and values that you believe should guide the decision.
2. The “mom” test: ask yourself whether you would feel comfortable sharing your decision with your mom.
3. Construe it as a decision involving more than one option: “Should” self tends to dominate if choosing between two options. Reformulate the ethical dilemma into a choice between two options – the ethical choice and the unethical choice.
After your decision: Debrief with a friend or colleague who can play devil’s advocate.
To change an organization . . .
Identify the informal values: What pressures do employees feel and why? What ethical challenges do they face? What types of decisions does the organization actually reward? What qualities characterize those who make it to the top? Identify who really “runs the company”. Who is listened to, where does no-one want to work. What slogans and stories do employees repeat over and over? One company produced a video with whistleblowers who prevented the corporation from acting unethically who are now shown to hold senior positions. The importance of labeling, how are unethical behaviors described? Is it “lying” or “misrepresenting the facts”?
Pay attention to areas in the organization that are characterized by uncertainty, time pressure, short-term horizons, and isolation. In environments characterized by high uncertainty, individuals may downplay the ethical implications of a decision. Time pressure reduces the cognitive resources available to make “should” choices. Isolated individuals/groups tend to develop different norms.
How to change society . . .
1. Change the default option. Make the default the ethical choice, ie. organ donation, low energy use.
2. Improve the clarity of information to expose value trade-offs. The example given is change the reporting on gasoline efficiency from miles per gallon (MPG) to gallons per mile (GPM). Choosing to go from a 5 MPG car to a 10MPG car is not the same as going from 20 to 25MPG. A 10 MPG car uses twice as much gas as a 5 MPG car, but that isn’t true of 20 vs 25. MPG isn’t a linear relationship, but GPM is.
3. Increase the importance of future concerns by having a slight delay in implementation. This increases the “should” self in decisions, if you think the change won’t happen for a year or two.
Read
September 1, 2023DNF
Was reading this w my sister for one of her class assignments. I read the first two chapters and really didn't enjoy the way the information was presented. There were also two instances where I felt like they were trying to skew the research findings to fit their points, so yeah not for me.
Maybe I'll pick it up again some day, but it's gonna be a while.
Was reading this w my sister for one of her class assignments. I read the first two chapters and really didn't enjoy the way the information was presented. There were also two instances where I felt like they were trying to skew the research findings to fit their points, so yeah not for me.
Maybe I'll pick it up again some day, but it's gonna be a while.
March 5, 2016
The book provides some good and thought provoking insight into why people tend to make bad unethical decisions. Though I found it a bit dry at times, it was still well worth the investment of my time. There is also an abbreviated version published by Harvard Business Review.
I highly recommend for anyone in business and anyone in a leadership position.
I highly recommend for anyone in business and anyone in a leadership position.
July 8, 2014
This is a great book about how people are much more unethical than they think they are. I'm an auditor, so thinking about what motivates people to act in less desirable ways is part of my job. The point of the book is that we tend to focus on corruption that is deliberate and intentional, but ignore unethical choices made everday that are unintentional, when we are confused by our ethical blind spots. The authors analyze major recent ethical lapses through this lens, such as Enron, steroids in baseball, and corporate misbehavior.
Below is a summary with many direct quotes from the book. I'm putting this together, mostly so I can remember what the heck their argument is, because it's so fascinating. I���m using their words, because they say it better than I could. They have a website too: http://www.blindspots-ethics.com.
This book explores the gap between how ethical we think we are and who we actually are. Ample evidence suggests that people who, in the abstract, believe they are honest and would never cheat, do in fact do so. And, they leave the experiment with their positive self-image intact. The authors, in extensive research, found most instances of corruption, and unethical behavior in general, are unintentional, a product of bounded ethicality and the fading of the ethical dimensions of the problem. More on those terms in a moment. The book also argues that, in order to understand ethics, researchers need to take a behaviorist view ��� seek to understand how people actually behave when faced with a decision.
So now those terms:
Bounded ethicality is related to bounded awareness, the common tendency to exclude important and relevant information from our decisions by placing arbitrary and dysfunctional bounds around our definitions of the problem. Just as our profit-focused work environments can keep us from seeing the ethical implications of our actions.
Ethical fading occurs when we remove ethics from our decision-making process, perhaps because we are focusing on organizational or other goals. As a result, we can act in a way that contradicts our ethical principles. This can be due to our survival instinct ��� avoid losses, get a bonus, look good. Once we have acted unethically, we engage in ���ethical spinning���, ie everybody���s doing it; recollection bias, ie its someone else���s fault; and even changing our ethical standards.
We have an inflated perception of our own ethicality and a limited awareness of how our minds work. When we think about a decision, we believe we will act ethically because we think abstractly (see the forest). When we are faced with a decision, we act unethically because of details such as time, ease, need (see the trees). Most interestingly, when we look back on our decision, we believe we are ethical, even with proof to the contrary (see the forest). This is because we justify our decision, change the facts in our mind, or are simply convinced we are good people.
The book argues that we generally make decisions based on our quick, emotive reactions (much praised in Gladwell���s Blink); however, we are more likely to make unethical choices when we don���t engage in more conscious and thoughtful decision-making. The authors cite some studies. In simulations, people are more likely to shoot black than white innocent bystanders. People make different decisions when faced with two options to weigh and compare, rather than a single option. People engage in ���in-group favoritism��� ��� wanting to help out a friend or someone like them. People tend to be egocentric, and overestimate their contribution or fair share. People tend to first which choice benefits them the most, and then justify the preference on the basis of fairness by altering the importance of the attributes that affect what is fair. They act more unethically when data is less certain and they tend to discount the future. The authors argue, that to encourage fairness, when dividing up a pie, one person should be the ���pie slicer��� and the other should be the first to take a slice.
We also ignore unethical behavior in others, due to four main reasons. The first is ���motivated blindness���. We are less likely to see it if seeing it would cause us harm. Motivations could be fear, incentives, organizational loyalty, and organizational culture. Examples are Germans under Hitler and Arthur Andersen. The second is ���indirect blindness.��� We are less likely to hold someone accountable if their action indirectly led to unethical action. So we don���t hold accountable a supervisor who delegates an unethical decision to a subordinate with clear instructions to ���do whatever it takes.��� The third is the ���slippery slope���. We are less likely to notice if the process is incremental. An example is the SEC not noticing Bernie Madoff���s behavior. A fourth is valuing outcomes over process. We hold a drunk driver who killed someone to a different standard than one who didn���t. Related to this is the ���identifiable victim effect���. We are more concerned with identifiable victims than statistical ones. An example is you are more likely to help a friend get a job than think about the qualified applicants who didn���t get the job because of your interference.
Reward systems intended to encourage ethical behavior can also go awry. Goal systems can encourage employees to:
1. Focus too narrowly on goals and neglect non-goal areas;
2. Engage in risky behavior;
3. Focus on extrinsic instead of intrinsic motivation;
4. Engage in more unethical behavior than they would otherwise.
The implementation of a compliance system can increase unethical behavior because it can change a decision from an ethical one to a business one ��� what is the cost vs benefit of compliance. When employees feel overly controlled, they may attempt to weaken, bypass, or trick the system. An organization should promote frameworks that highlight the ethical rather than the compliance dimensions of a decision.
Doing good can become a license to misbehave. People who work for ���good��� organizations, have positive moral self-image, or have been transparent about a conflict of interest are more likely to make an unethical choice. Organizations should make it more difficult for employees to mitigate unethical behavior through good deeds by setting a clear zero-tolerance policy and continually raising the bar for ethical behavior.
Formal controls are inferior to informal/social controls in an organization. As a result, formal systems that don���t reflect an organization���s values will have little impact. People will follow informal systems first. For example, Enron had a code of ethics that did little.
Why do we fail to fix corrupted institutions? The authors present three techniques used to institutionalize corruption:
1. Obfuscation and the encouragement of reasonable doubt. They explain ���agnotology���: the cultural production of ignorance, used by big tobacco to question the heath effect of smoking.
2. The search for the smoking gun. The requirement for providing incontrovertible evidence a change is needed, for example the auditing profession.
3. Expressing shifting views of the facts. For example, after the Enron ���smoking gun���, auditing firms argued over regulation changes and questioned whether it is worth the cost to fix the ethics problem.
Regarding the auditing profession, the authors argue that the current US audit system makes it ���psychologically impossible���, for even the most honest auditors to make objective judgments. To create true independence requires:
1. Only provide auditing services to clients.
2. Auditing contracts should be of a limited duration, during which time the client cannot fire the auditor.
3. Companies cannot hire accountants who audited them.
From the authors��� perspective, Sarbanes-Oxley utterly failed to respond to the key flaws of the auditing industry. It did none of the above. It only prohibited some non-audit services. It required rotation of lead auditor, but not auditing firm. It permitted auditors to work for companies they audit.
The debate over climate change represents the general public���s tendency to discount the future and avoid even minor inconveniences hinders us from endorsing the actions of politicians who accept the need to inflict small costs in the present to avoid future catastrophe.
So how do you narrow the gap between who you think you are and who you are?
For yourself as an individual . . .
When preparing to make a decision: Thinking about what your motivation will be at the time of a decision makes you more likely to recognize that you will behave unethically. Prepare for the ethical questions you hope won���t be asked. Commit to acting ethically - our reluctance to walk away from a choice means those who publicly commit to a decision in advance are more likely to follow through.
When making an important decision: Do three tests.
1. Think abstractly: Focus on the abstract principles and values that you believe should guide the decision.
2. The ���mom��� test: ask yourself whether you would feel comfortable sharing your decision with your mom.
3. Construe it as a decision involving more than one option: ���Should��� self tends to dominate if choosing between two options. Reformulate the ethical dilemma into a choice between two options ��� the ethical choice and the unethical choice.
After your decision: Debrief with a friend or colleague who can play devil���s advocate.
To change an organization . . .
Identify the informal values: What pressures do employees feel and why? What ethical challenges do they face? What types of decisions does the organization actually reward? What qualities characterize those who make it to the top? Identify who really ���runs the company���. Who is listened to, where does no-one want to work. What slogans and stories do employees repeat over and over? One company produced a video with whistleblowers who prevented the corporation from acting unethically who are now shown to hold senior positions. The importance of labeling, how are unethical behaviors described? Is it ���lying��� or ���misrepresenting the facts���?
Pay attention to areas in the organization that are characterized by uncertainty, time pressure, short-term horizons, and isolation. In environments characterized by high uncertainty, individuals may downplay the ethical implications of a decision. Time pressure reduces the cognitive resources available to make ���should��� choices. Isolated individuals/groups tend to develop different norms.
How to change society . . .
1. Change the default option. Make the default the ethical choice, ie. organ donation, low energy use.
2. Improve the clarity of information to expose value trade-offs. The example given is change the reporting on gasoline efficiency from miles per gallon (MPG) to gallons per mile (GPM). Choosing to go from a 5 MPG car to a 10MPG car is not the same as going from 20 to 25MPG. A 10 MPG car uses twice as much gas as a 5 MPG car, but that isn���t true of 20 vs 25. MPG isn���t a linear relationship, but GPM is.
3. Increase the importance of future concerns by having a slight delay in implementation. This increases the ���should��� self in decisions, if you think the change won���t happen for a year or two.
Below is a summary with many direct quotes from the book. I'm putting this together, mostly so I can remember what the heck their argument is, because it's so fascinating. I���m using their words, because they say it better than I could. They have a website too: http://www.blindspots-ethics.com.
This book explores the gap between how ethical we think we are and who we actually are. Ample evidence suggests that people who, in the abstract, believe they are honest and would never cheat, do in fact do so. And, they leave the experiment with their positive self-image intact. The authors, in extensive research, found most instances of corruption, and unethical behavior in general, are unintentional, a product of bounded ethicality and the fading of the ethical dimensions of the problem. More on those terms in a moment. The book also argues that, in order to understand ethics, researchers need to take a behaviorist view ��� seek to understand how people actually behave when faced with a decision.
So now those terms:
Bounded ethicality is related to bounded awareness, the common tendency to exclude important and relevant information from our decisions by placing arbitrary and dysfunctional bounds around our definitions of the problem. Just as our profit-focused work environments can keep us from seeing the ethical implications of our actions.
Ethical fading occurs when we remove ethics from our decision-making process, perhaps because we are focusing on organizational or other goals. As a result, we can act in a way that contradicts our ethical principles. This can be due to our survival instinct ��� avoid losses, get a bonus, look good. Once we have acted unethically, we engage in ���ethical spinning���, ie everybody���s doing it; recollection bias, ie its someone else���s fault; and even changing our ethical standards.
We have an inflated perception of our own ethicality and a limited awareness of how our minds work. When we think about a decision, we believe we will act ethically because we think abstractly (see the forest). When we are faced with a decision, we act unethically because of details such as time, ease, need (see the trees). Most interestingly, when we look back on our decision, we believe we are ethical, even with proof to the contrary (see the forest). This is because we justify our decision, change the facts in our mind, or are simply convinced we are good people.
The book argues that we generally make decisions based on our quick, emotive reactions (much praised in Gladwell���s Blink); however, we are more likely to make unethical choices when we don���t engage in more conscious and thoughtful decision-making. The authors cite some studies. In simulations, people are more likely to shoot black than white innocent bystanders. People make different decisions when faced with two options to weigh and compare, rather than a single option. People engage in ���in-group favoritism��� ��� wanting to help out a friend or someone like them. People tend to be egocentric, and overestimate their contribution or fair share. People tend to first which choice benefits them the most, and then justify the preference on the basis of fairness by altering the importance of the attributes that affect what is fair. They act more unethically when data is less certain and they tend to discount the future. The authors argue, that to encourage fairness, when dividing up a pie, one person should be the ���pie slicer��� and the other should be the first to take a slice.
We also ignore unethical behavior in others, due to four main reasons. The first is ���motivated blindness���. We are less likely to see it if seeing it would cause us harm. Motivations could be fear, incentives, organizational loyalty, and organizational culture. Examples are Germans under Hitler and Arthur Andersen. The second is ���indirect blindness.��� We are less likely to hold someone accountable if their action indirectly led to unethical action. So we don���t hold accountable a supervisor who delegates an unethical decision to a subordinate with clear instructions to ���do whatever it takes.��� The third is the ���slippery slope���. We are less likely to notice if the process is incremental. An example is the SEC not noticing Bernie Madoff���s behavior. A fourth is valuing outcomes over process. We hold a drunk driver who killed someone to a different standard than one who didn���t. Related to this is the ���identifiable victim effect���. We are more concerned with identifiable victims than statistical ones. An example is you are more likely to help a friend get a job than think about the qualified applicants who didn���t get the job because of your interference.
Reward systems intended to encourage ethical behavior can also go awry. Goal systems can encourage employees to:
1. Focus too narrowly on goals and neglect non-goal areas;
2. Engage in risky behavior;
3. Focus on extrinsic instead of intrinsic motivation;
4. Engage in more unethical behavior than they would otherwise.
The implementation of a compliance system can increase unethical behavior because it can change a decision from an ethical one to a business one ��� what is the cost vs benefit of compliance. When employees feel overly controlled, they may attempt to weaken, bypass, or trick the system. An organization should promote frameworks that highlight the ethical rather than the compliance dimensions of a decision.
Doing good can become a license to misbehave. People who work for ���good��� organizations, have positive moral self-image, or have been transparent about a conflict of interest are more likely to make an unethical choice. Organizations should make it more difficult for employees to mitigate unethical behavior through good deeds by setting a clear zero-tolerance policy and continually raising the bar for ethical behavior.
Formal controls are inferior to informal/social controls in an organization. As a result, formal systems that don���t reflect an organization���s values will have little impact. People will follow informal systems first. For example, Enron had a code of ethics that did little.
Why do we fail to fix corrupted institutions? The authors present three techniques used to institutionalize corruption:
1. Obfuscation and the encouragement of reasonable doubt. They explain ���agnotology���: the cultural production of ignorance, used by big tobacco to question the heath effect of smoking.
2. The search for the smoking gun. The requirement for providing incontrovertible evidence a change is needed, for example the auditing profession.
3. Expressing shifting views of the facts. For example, after the Enron ���smoking gun���, auditing firms argued over regulation changes and questioned whether it is worth the cost to fix the ethics problem.
Regarding the auditing profession, the authors argue that the current US audit system makes it ���psychologically impossible���, for even the most honest auditors to make objective judgments. To create true independence requires:
1. Only provide auditing services to clients.
2. Auditing contracts should be of a limited duration, during which time the client cannot fire the auditor.
3. Companies cannot hire accountants who audited them.
From the authors��� perspective, Sarbanes-Oxley utterly failed to respond to the key flaws of the auditing industry. It did none of the above. It only prohibited some non-audit services. It required rotation of lead auditor, but not auditing firm. It permitted auditors to work for companies they audit.
The debate over climate change represents the general public���s tendency to discount the future and avoid even minor inconveniences hinders us from endorsing the actions of politicians who accept the need to inflict small costs in the present to avoid future catastrophe.
So how do you narrow the gap between who you think you are and who you are?
For yourself as an individual . . .
When preparing to make a decision: Thinking about what your motivation will be at the time of a decision makes you more likely to recognize that you will behave unethically. Prepare for the ethical questions you hope won���t be asked. Commit to acting ethically - our reluctance to walk away from a choice means those who publicly commit to a decision in advance are more likely to follow through.
When making an important decision: Do three tests.
1. Think abstractly: Focus on the abstract principles and values that you believe should guide the decision.
2. The ���mom��� test: ask yourself whether you would feel comfortable sharing your decision with your mom.
3. Construe it as a decision involving more than one option: ���Should��� self tends to dominate if choosing between two options. Reformulate the ethical dilemma into a choice between two options ��� the ethical choice and the unethical choice.
After your decision: Debrief with a friend or colleague who can play devil���s advocate.
To change an organization . . .
Identify the informal values: What pressures do employees feel and why? What ethical challenges do they face? What types of decisions does the organization actually reward? What qualities characterize those who make it to the top? Identify who really ���runs the company���. Who is listened to, where does no-one want to work. What slogans and stories do employees repeat over and over? One company produced a video with whistleblowers who prevented the corporation from acting unethically who are now shown to hold senior positions. The importance of labeling, how are unethical behaviors described? Is it ���lying��� or ���misrepresenting the facts���?
Pay attention to areas in the organization that are characterized by uncertainty, time pressure, short-term horizons, and isolation. In environments characterized by high uncertainty, individuals may downplay the ethical implications of a decision. Time pressure reduces the cognitive resources available to make ���should��� choices. Isolated individuals/groups tend to develop different norms.
How to change society . . .
1. Change the default option. Make the default the ethical choice, ie. organ donation, low energy use.
2. Improve the clarity of information to expose value trade-offs. The example given is change the reporting on gasoline efficiency from miles per gallon (MPG) to gallons per mile (GPM). Choosing to go from a 5 MPG car to a 10MPG car is not the same as going from 20 to 25MPG. A 10 MPG car uses twice as much gas as a 5 MPG car, but that isn���t true of 20 vs 25. MPG isn���t a linear relationship, but GPM is.
3. Increase the importance of future concerns by having a slight delay in implementation. This increases the ���should��� self in decisions, if you think the change won���t happen for a year or two.
May 23, 2022
Read most of this book for an ethics class called “Designing.a Good Life”. This book was pretty easy to read and understand, happy I own it to have as a reference for ethical design in organizations
December 5, 2011
Not the most scintillating writing, but a clear and compelling book about how our psychological tendencies make it almost impossible for us to behave as ethically as we want to, or as ethically as we think we do. The authors -- a Harvard prof and a Notre Dame prof -- also show how these very human flaws affect corporate ethics and societal ethics.
At the end of the book, they mention two ways that governments could immediately obtain more ethical decisions. One is the Sunstein-Thaler "Nudge" approach of resetting defaults. Knowing that most people like the status quo and have a hard time changing it, this would change the status quo to require people to opt out of desirable outcomes rather than opt in. The difference in organ donation rates between opt-out societies like Spain and opt-in ones like ours is incredible. Another way of exploiting human tendencies is the delayed imposition rule. When people are given all the pros and cons of policies like raising fuel taxes to cut climate warming and foreign oil dependence, or cutting fishing quotas to preserve fish for the future, they are much more likely to vote in favor of them if they are told that the policies won't go into effect until some future point.
Full of interesting experimental results, "Blind Spots" is an important and timely book.
August 12, 2018
The you that should and the you that wants are vastly different. The should you is calculating your decisions before their arrival, but when it is decision time, the want you takes over. The decisions made under the control of your’ want self, end up being subpar to the decisions that you wanted to make. Nevertheless, you rationalize the decision as one that was right. The core of this book is that difference, the difference between the decisions well planned out in advance and the actual decisions made while not recognizing the difference post hoc.
Ethical decisions come after deep thought, while the more unethical ones come spontaneously when the decision needs to be made. It’s a problem when we believe we are more ethical than we are, as it prevents us from becoming as ethical we actually want to be, but the bigger problem is that other people seem to be more unethical. When we make a decision, whether ethical or not, we consider it to be more ethical than when someone else makes the same exact decision.
The ethicality of a decision tends to be determined by the outcome. No matter how unethical a decision may be ad hoc, if the outcome is favorable to the organization or individual, the decision becomes seen as more ethical. Those unethical decisions make similar future decisions easier to make, because they now have a precedent. The unethical decisions than culminate in an organization culture which not only prevents the better and more ethical decisions from being made as the ethical decisions will echo a taboo likeness, but also fosters an environment detrimental to organizational goals.
Segmenting decisions and indirect causes are some of the ways that everyone misses an ethical decision for what it is. By thinking of an ethical decision as a different sort, such as a management or engineering decision, prevents the decision from being made in a holistic manner. Categorizing the decisions prevents organizations from understanding the future impact of that decision. When a decision is an unethical, to avoid being blamed for being unethical, organization create an indirect way of making the decision such as by handing the decision to anther firm. Categorizing and indirect causes can be seen as ethical decisions by placing all the available options next to each other.
Most, if not all organizations, want to be ethical and be seen as ethical. They create formal claims to their ethics and codes of conduct. Formal claims, unfortunately, are superseded by the informal organization structure. Organization culture such as the stories that are being told or not create an environment which can be contrary to the external claims of ethics. To correct the unethical behavior, goal setting seems to have the effect of making the unethical behavior worse. Setting goals focuses the employees on those goals, which prevents them seeing non-goal decisions as being ethical decisions, creating an unintended incentive to make unethical decisions.
There are three problems in this book: lack of jargon, view on ethics, and tyranny of the majority. There is a lot of research from other fields in this book, but only behavioral ethics jargon is provided. The lack of jargon makes it difficult to communicate many of the ideas, and make it much harder to foster future use of the ideas. Simply having a few key terms, jargon, as a footnote to the particular research under discussion would have helped a lot.
For better or worse the authors have a more individualistic representation of ethics. Ethics are on an imaginary scale in this book, where everyone compares their ethics to other and everyone thinks they are more ethical than the average. This relative ethics creates a problem that everyone will be either ethical or unethical in comparison to someone else, for instance, among a few saints, one will be the unethical saint. Even though everyone can be extremely ethical, or in absolute terms ethical enough for the decisions to be made, everyone becomes unethical by comparison. This is from an individualist approach to ethics, while ethics is determined by the society where different societies will view each other as atrocious and unethical due to different ethical codes of conduct. As the book is more about the individual expected and made ethical decisions, the individualistic approach is not much a problem, but neither is it referenced.
The final problem with the book is the ethics view that the majority is right. Even though the authors claim not to impose their ethical views on the reader, they implicitly do. The examples and explanation provide regard the majority as being right. The problem with this is that a majority can create tyranny such as genocide and unfavorable laws to the minority. The authors pick topics which are pressing and the majority can be right about them, but the resolution to each of problems created by the minority, is to take away their freedom of speech. The authors may target the examples where a majority is more likely to be right as counterbalance. The examples exhibit tyranny of the minority, for the minority impacted by a change will be the more fervent defenders of the status quo, nevertheless the handling of these issues should have been more ethical to complexity of the issues.
This is an eloquent book that utilizes behavioral economics, game theory, psychology, and ethics. Incentives which create cultures that produce ethical or unethical decisions are ubiquitous. This book can help organizations produce a culture more suitable to reaching their actual goals and help individuals understand how they can become the person they imagine themselves to be.
Ethical decisions come after deep thought, while the more unethical ones come spontaneously when the decision needs to be made. It’s a problem when we believe we are more ethical than we are, as it prevents us from becoming as ethical we actually want to be, but the bigger problem is that other people seem to be more unethical. When we make a decision, whether ethical or not, we consider it to be more ethical than when someone else makes the same exact decision.
The ethicality of a decision tends to be determined by the outcome. No matter how unethical a decision may be ad hoc, if the outcome is favorable to the organization or individual, the decision becomes seen as more ethical. Those unethical decisions make similar future decisions easier to make, because they now have a precedent. The unethical decisions than culminate in an organization culture which not only prevents the better and more ethical decisions from being made as the ethical decisions will echo a taboo likeness, but also fosters an environment detrimental to organizational goals.
Segmenting decisions and indirect causes are some of the ways that everyone misses an ethical decision for what it is. By thinking of an ethical decision as a different sort, such as a management or engineering decision, prevents the decision from being made in a holistic manner. Categorizing the decisions prevents organizations from understanding the future impact of that decision. When a decision is an unethical, to avoid being blamed for being unethical, organization create an indirect way of making the decision such as by handing the decision to anther firm. Categorizing and indirect causes can be seen as ethical decisions by placing all the available options next to each other.
Most, if not all organizations, want to be ethical and be seen as ethical. They create formal claims to their ethics and codes of conduct. Formal claims, unfortunately, are superseded by the informal organization structure. Organization culture such as the stories that are being told or not create an environment which can be contrary to the external claims of ethics. To correct the unethical behavior, goal setting seems to have the effect of making the unethical behavior worse. Setting goals focuses the employees on those goals, which prevents them seeing non-goal decisions as being ethical decisions, creating an unintended incentive to make unethical decisions.
There are three problems in this book: lack of jargon, view on ethics, and tyranny of the majority. There is a lot of research from other fields in this book, but only behavioral ethics jargon is provided. The lack of jargon makes it difficult to communicate many of the ideas, and make it much harder to foster future use of the ideas. Simply having a few key terms, jargon, as a footnote to the particular research under discussion would have helped a lot.
For better or worse the authors have a more individualistic representation of ethics. Ethics are on an imaginary scale in this book, where everyone compares their ethics to other and everyone thinks they are more ethical than the average. This relative ethics creates a problem that everyone will be either ethical or unethical in comparison to someone else, for instance, among a few saints, one will be the unethical saint. Even though everyone can be extremely ethical, or in absolute terms ethical enough for the decisions to be made, everyone becomes unethical by comparison. This is from an individualist approach to ethics, while ethics is determined by the society where different societies will view each other as atrocious and unethical due to different ethical codes of conduct. As the book is more about the individual expected and made ethical decisions, the individualistic approach is not much a problem, but neither is it referenced.
The final problem with the book is the ethics view that the majority is right. Even though the authors claim not to impose their ethical views on the reader, they implicitly do. The examples and explanation provide regard the majority as being right. The problem with this is that a majority can create tyranny such as genocide and unfavorable laws to the minority. The authors pick topics which are pressing and the majority can be right about them, but the resolution to each of problems created by the minority, is to take away their freedom of speech. The authors may target the examples where a majority is more likely to be right as counterbalance. The examples exhibit tyranny of the minority, for the minority impacted by a change will be the more fervent defenders of the status quo, nevertheless the handling of these issues should have been more ethical to complexity of the issues.
This is an eloquent book that utilizes behavioral economics, game theory, psychology, and ethics. Incentives which create cultures that produce ethical or unethical decisions are ubiquitous. This book can help organizations produce a culture more suitable to reaching their actual goals and help individuals understand how they can become the person they imagine themselves to be.
March 2, 2023
Read for my Business Ethics class.
Authors do a great job of laying out their arguments. There is although a lack of novel arguments as the book goes on, and some vague references and quite the amount of repetition. However I found the style of writing engaging and would consider this a good read for anyone interested in discovering the ethical blind spots people and organisations have and what can be done about them.
Authors do a great job of laying out their arguments. There is although a lack of novel arguments as the book goes on, and some vague references and quite the amount of repetition. However I found the style of writing engaging and would consider this a good read for anyone interested in discovering the ethical blind spots people and organisations have and what can be done about them.
October 4, 2011
I read this book because I'm developing an ethics course at work. The main thesis behind the book is that people make poor ethical choices not because they're bad people but because they are blind to the factors that shortcut their decisions.
For example, last month's kerfuffle involving the authors who were unwilling to change/delete the gay character from their MG sci-fi series. During the melee, there was a lot of focus and back and forth on the agency and whether or not the agency/agent were bigoted/anti-gay. As I read post after post defending the agency ("I know them and they're not anti-gay. They would never do anything like this."), I kept thinking of one of the blind spots brought up in this book—reclassification. The agency and its friends may see themselves in this certain light, but by reclassifying the decision ("It's a marketing decision about what will sell."), they're able to distance themselves and eliminate the gay character (which was an elimination of a gay character if the accounts of not eliminating the straight romantic elements as well is true) by blaming it on something else.
So, the book provided good food for thought. It plodded along with a lot of unnecessary repetition. It might have also benefitted with more examples, and more diverse ones at that.
For example, last month's kerfuffle involving the authors who were unwilling to change/delete the gay character from their MG sci-fi series. During the melee, there was a lot of focus and back and forth on the agency and whether or not the agency/agent were bigoted/anti-gay. As I read post after post defending the agency ("I know them and they're not anti-gay. They would never do anything like this."), I kept thinking of one of the blind spots brought up in this book—reclassification. The agency and its friends may see themselves in this certain light, but by reclassifying the decision ("It's a marketing decision about what will sell."), they're able to distance themselves and eliminate the gay character (which was an elimination of a gay character if the accounts of not eliminating the straight romantic elements as well is true) by blaming it on something else.
So, the book provided good food for thought. It plodded along with a lot of unnecessary repetition. It might have also benefitted with more examples, and more diverse ones at that.
December 17, 2015
"In the prediction phase, we may clearly see the ethical aspect of a given decision. Our moral values are evoked, and we believe we will behave according to those values. … models of ethical decision making derived by philosophers, in fact, often predict that moral awareness will prompt moral behavior. However, at the time of the decision, ethical fading occurs, and we no longer see the ethical dimension of a decision. Ethical principles don’t appear to be relevant, so they don’t enter into our decision, and we behave unethically as a result" (p.69).
Kind of an interesting book - lots of labels for different 'cognitive biases' that prevent us from acting in the interest of others (current and future generations). That we are more interested in the individual short term reward over the community's long term interests is not a startling revelation. We've valourized this very behaviour in the West as our highest achievement.
Kind of an interesting book - lots of labels for different 'cognitive biases' that prevent us from acting in the interest of others (current and future generations). That we are more interested in the individual short term reward over the community's long term interests is not a startling revelation. We've valourized this very behaviour in the West as our highest achievement.
December 30, 2011
Fascinating findings and implications but a bit of a dry read. This book explores how people believe they are more ethical than they really are and that they believe others are less ethical than they may be. It looks at these issues mostly in a business setting and examines studies and findings on what does not work and what does. Interestingly, instituting rewards or punishment for a single goal is not effective. People either focus so much on the reward they neglect other good things or they look for ways to skirt the rules. The book is clear and seems very honest in its examination of current ethics issues.
April 8, 2013
An excellent discussion of ethics and the dangers inherent in "bounded ethics," focusing only on certain decisions as involving ethics while neglecting the ethical import of other decisions and/or the unethical actions done without conscious awareness or consideration of their unethical nature.
The authors do well at explaining these concepts and connecting them to recent events and studies on individual, corporate, cultural, and political levels. They also suggest possible solutions for these groups to become more aware of the ethical import of their decisions and resisting "bounded" ethicality.
Worth consideration.
The authors do well at explaining these concepts and connecting them to recent events and studies on individual, corporate, cultural, and political levels. They also suggest possible solutions for these groups to become more aware of the ethical import of their decisions and resisting "bounded" ethicality.
Worth consideration.
February 2, 2021
Fairly well written book on ethics. It is a fairly straightforward read and as such can be read from high school onward.
My one complaint is the authors engage a few times in their own blind spots, but I know their intentions are pure. Example while exhibiting the need for increasing importance of future concerns they mention how people make ethical decisions today that leave a burden of an unmanageable national debt for future generations. This blind spot is not understanding the role of a currency issuer and currency user and how the national debt story we are told is a myth.
My one complaint is the authors engage a few times in their own blind spots, but I know their intentions are pure. Example while exhibiting the need for increasing importance of future concerns they mention how people make ethical decisions today that leave a burden of an unmanageable national debt for future generations. This blind spot is not understanding the role of a currency issuer and currency user and how the national debt story we are told is a myth.
May 10, 2012
This book had a lot of really good ideas, and helped me refine my thinking about ethical decision making. I think the key idea--that most ethical lapses are not intentional--is really key to understanding ethical challenges. The shortcoming of this book, as the authors openly admit, is that there is not much in the way of advice for staying on track. Nevertheless, this offers a helpful framework for thinking about ethical lapses.
August 7, 2014
This book contains some important considerations that are often overlooked in the average ethics book. Others concentrate on what is right or wrong, what one should or should not do. This one addresses why we make choices that violate the ethics we espouse. It is interesting to realize many people fail to even recognize the ethical nature of the choices they face and make the choice based on other criteria. I recommend it for anyone looking into a more practical side of ethics.
August 31, 2012
There's a lot of good stuff in this that helps us understand how the mind works in relationship to ethics. Explanations for why we're not as ethical as we think we are, about the slippery slope of ethics, and why so many well-intentioned government programs achieve exactly the opposite result than is wanted. A worthwhile read.
December 5, 2011
Why do "good" people make lousy ethical decisions -- yes JoePa, I'm referring to YOU! Behavioral Ethics -- an exciting, emerging field described in this book -- provides meaningful and actionable insight to the ethical challenges that face us all.
May 25, 2013
I thoroughly enjoyed this. Bazerman creates a good argument that we, as people, unconsciously create walls around parts of our life so that we can make decisions we need not regard as ethical or unethical - no matter how closely related they are to our values and ethics.
May 3, 2015
Being ethical in banking is a lot harder than we think. There is always a gap between how ethical we think we are and who we actually are. We do bad things sometimes without being aware that we are doing anything wrong.
September 16, 2015
Eye Opening
Helped me see some of my own blind spots and the power of "want" versus "should" in my choices. Everyone aspiring to management positions can benefit by understanding the importance between what they say and what they do on the ethical culture of their work group.
Helped me see some of my own blind spots and the power of "want" versus "should" in my choices. Everyone aspiring to management positions can benefit by understanding the importance between what they say and what they do on the ethical culture of their work group.
May 1, 2016
This book isn't full of aha moments or anything but it's a book I think everyone should read. We all have blind spots but if you don't know what they are you'll never be able to see yours. It did a good job describing blind spots and gave good advice on how to deal with your own blind spots.
January 8, 2012
Summary of decades of research. Interesting, but if you're vaguely familiar with the field you've probably read most things here elsewhere
January 7, 2021
The introduction works well enough and I was excited to learn more. Unfortunately, the entire middle section of the book is a little inaccessible, bordering on a slog to get through. The conclusion wraps it up so nicely though and was an absolutely wonderful read. Just wish the whole book had been on par with that.
The main issue is that the book seems to be trying to convince you that these psychological phenomenon exist through examples, but they’re barking up the wrong tree. I don’t need further explanation that they exist in other people. It’s all too easy to imagine other people slipping up and making a selfish choice, but even after having read through the conclusion I find it hard to believe myself capable of the same. Or if I can identify with the relatively benign research examples given (lying about your current salary to a future employer is one example used frequently), then they don’y give much opportunity to extrapolate that into bigger decisions or show the long term effects of those decisions.
In addition, they constantly are bringing up either the same real world examples over and over again (you’ll learn a lot about Arthur Andersen and auditing from this book), or taking a lot of effort to poorly describe a research scenario and then never extrapolate from that scenario to show how that could affect one’s own life.
The conclusion shines like a diamond in the rough. Just a few pages in, my attention had been fully recaptured and I was taking copious notes. The difference? In the final chapter or two they begin to apply the concepts they had discussed to one’s own life, an organization, and society as a whole, specifically with ideas for how to combat the psychological effects they had described previously.
In my opinion the conclusion should have been broken up into pieces and each one attached to the chapter that introduces the effect. Then the book would read not as just a research paper saying “This is our field, please believe it exists and is valid” and instead become that as well as an engaging manual to overcoming ill effects of the human mind.
There are still issues. For example, discussion on what morals are being used as assumptions for each example is nonexistent. They make a point of claiming not to have restricted the book to only a certain moral or political viewpoint - but they don’t bother to account for that by explicitly stating what moral beliefs are being broken in their examples. The effect is that they assume you will resonate with the examples provided. I was rolling my eyes at the idea of telling my mother whether I lied about my salary to hold myself more accountable - I don’t think my mother cares about the value of complete honesty in every situation, so I couldn’t relate in the slightest. If they had framed this as a transgression of *a* value rather than my own value, I could have more easily seen how others would be upset by this and come up with a similar situation for myself.
There is also scant discussion on the topic of understanding when you transgress your morals and yet choosing to do it anyway. I believe this is an issue which plagues me and I would have loved to have seen more thought out into this - how does the environment and one’s situation affect their proclivity to do a moral action even when they’re aware that their decision has moral consequences? This was briefly touched on in the conclusion and never again.
I think 3 stars is fair considering the issues this book had and yet the strong teaching effect it had on me. If I had lost interest or not been up to the task of thinking deeply, the message would have been entirely lost on me or I would have stopped reading early on. I’m glad to have read the book and do recommend it, but it’s sorely in need of an editor’s help and a new edition.
The main issue is that the book seems to be trying to convince you that these psychological phenomenon exist through examples, but they’re barking up the wrong tree. I don’t need further explanation that they exist in other people. It’s all too easy to imagine other people slipping up and making a selfish choice, but even after having read through the conclusion I find it hard to believe myself capable of the same. Or if I can identify with the relatively benign research examples given (lying about your current salary to a future employer is one example used frequently), then they don’y give much opportunity to extrapolate that into bigger decisions or show the long term effects of those decisions.
In addition, they constantly are bringing up either the same real world examples over and over again (you’ll learn a lot about Arthur Andersen and auditing from this book), or taking a lot of effort to poorly describe a research scenario and then never extrapolate from that scenario to show how that could affect one’s own life.
The conclusion shines like a diamond in the rough. Just a few pages in, my attention had been fully recaptured and I was taking copious notes. The difference? In the final chapter or two they begin to apply the concepts they had discussed to one’s own life, an organization, and society as a whole, specifically with ideas for how to combat the psychological effects they had described previously.
In my opinion the conclusion should have been broken up into pieces and each one attached to the chapter that introduces the effect. Then the book would read not as just a research paper saying “This is our field, please believe it exists and is valid” and instead become that as well as an engaging manual to overcoming ill effects of the human mind.
There are still issues. For example, discussion on what morals are being used as assumptions for each example is nonexistent. They make a point of claiming not to have restricted the book to only a certain moral or political viewpoint - but they don’t bother to account for that by explicitly stating what moral beliefs are being broken in their examples. The effect is that they assume you will resonate with the examples provided. I was rolling my eyes at the idea of telling my mother whether I lied about my salary to hold myself more accountable - I don’t think my mother cares about the value of complete honesty in every situation, so I couldn’t relate in the slightest. If they had framed this as a transgression of *a* value rather than my own value, I could have more easily seen how others would be upset by this and come up with a similar situation for myself.
There is also scant discussion on the topic of understanding when you transgress your morals and yet choosing to do it anyway. I believe this is an issue which plagues me and I would have loved to have seen more thought out into this - how does the environment and one’s situation affect their proclivity to do a moral action even when they’re aware that their decision has moral consequences? This was briefly touched on in the conclusion and never again.
I think 3 stars is fair considering the issues this book had and yet the strong teaching effect it had on me. If I had lost interest or not been up to the task of thinking deeply, the message would have been entirely lost on me or I would have stopped reading early on. I’m glad to have read the book and do recommend it, but it’s sorely in need of an editor’s help and a new edition.
January 19, 2025
A large body of experimentation and research shows that pretty much everyone predicts that they will, of course, behave ethically when challenged, and that we regard our past actions as ethically commendable. Thus, we generally see ourselves as good ethical beings. But we readily see unethical people all around us. Those unethical people likewise see themselves as good ethical beings and others around them as unethical, including perhaps you. People have an innate ability to maintain a belief while acting contrary to it. Riddle me this!
The authors of this book aim to alert the reader to the blind spots, factors outside your awareness, that prevent you from seeing the gaps between your desired ethical behavior, your predictions of your own responses to future ethical dilemmas, and your actual behavior when confronted with an ethical challenge, as well as your post-event interpretation of your performance. We fail to recognize and adjust to the psychology driving ethical behavior. The book does this through exploration of behavior ethics, which studies how people actually behave when confronted with ethical dilemmas. The paradox is that we often behave contrary to our best ethical intentions. What’s more, evaluations of our own moral transgressions often differ substantially from our evaluations of the same transgressions committed by others, which amounts to moral hypocrisy. Applying the lens of behavioral ethics, the authors identified ways in which you, and the group to which you belong, can see the ethical implications of your actions more clearly and make choices that better align with your values.
There is a lot of great material in this book. It should be required reading for high school graduation and for politicians.
The authors of this book aim to alert the reader to the blind spots, factors outside your awareness, that prevent you from seeing the gaps between your desired ethical behavior, your predictions of your own responses to future ethical dilemmas, and your actual behavior when confronted with an ethical challenge, as well as your post-event interpretation of your performance. We fail to recognize and adjust to the psychology driving ethical behavior. The book does this through exploration of behavior ethics, which studies how people actually behave when confronted with ethical dilemmas. The paradox is that we often behave contrary to our best ethical intentions. What’s more, evaluations of our own moral transgressions often differ substantially from our evaluations of the same transgressions committed by others, which amounts to moral hypocrisy. Applying the lens of behavioral ethics, the authors identified ways in which you, and the group to which you belong, can see the ethical implications of your actions more clearly and make choices that better align with your values.
There is a lot of great material in this book. It should be required reading for high school graduation and for politicians.
December 12, 2023
How ethical are you?
Maybe it all started by giving money to a police officer and then failing to pay your taxes by a huge percentage?
Maybe it all started out with a friend and ended up cheating on your wife?
Maybe it all started with a white lie and ended with a scam?
I remember when I was young I worked for a company that produced asbestos products, and part of my job was to convince the public that asbestos was not bad. And he did that work.
To understand why we make wrong decisions, we must understand how decisions are made and then change the process. And especially if you are a company, how do you change things to achieve greater honesty in your collaborators?
In this book cases like Enron, the cigarette industry, the pharmaceutical industry. Interesting book.
Maybe it all started by giving money to a police officer and then failing to pay your taxes by a huge percentage?
Maybe it all started out with a friend and ended up cheating on your wife?
Maybe it all started with a white lie and ended with a scam?
I remember when I was young I worked for a company that produced asbestos products, and part of my job was to convince the public that asbestos was not bad. And he did that work.
To understand why we make wrong decisions, we must understand how decisions are made and then change the process. And especially if you are a company, how do you change things to achieve greater honesty in your collaborators?
In this book cases like Enron, the cigarette industry, the pharmaceutical industry. Interesting book.
June 26, 2025
This is a fantastic book—well-researched and well-written. However, is that it feels dated. Published 14 years ago, much of the content has since been explored in other popular behavioral economics books (yes, the marshmallow test makes an appearance). Of course, that’s not the authors’ fault.
If you have already read authors like Gladwell, Kahneman, and others, you will likely find familiar territory here. That said, if you are just starting to explore behavioral economics or popular ethics, this book serves as an excellent introduction and a solid foundation for further reading in the field.
If you have already read authors like Gladwell, Kahneman, and others, you will likely find familiar territory here. That said, if you are just starting to explore behavioral economics or popular ethics, this book serves as an excellent introduction and a solid foundation for further reading in the field.
May 8, 2021
The author's accomplished their goal, which was to identify ethical blind spots using behavioral psychology studies. I really enjoyed the studies they provided as well as the tools we can use to start eliminating harmful policies and be a more ethical society. My only criticism (which they agree with) was that they were sometimes blinded by their own biases in the book. They also used a few studies that were unconvincing.
A great read for those interested in ethics and how to identify one's own shortcomings.
A great read for those interested in ethics and how to identify one's own shortcomings.
September 1, 2018
I was disappointed in this book. I thought it would be more about individuals and explaining why we do things we know are not right, either for others or ourselves. It was about organizations, businesses and corporations. It seems they are beholden to the bottom line and use that to justify behaviour that can be monumentally damaging to employees, less influential groups of people and countries and our environment.
January 2, 2021
Our actual behaviour is not as ethical as we tend to think.
Most of the book goes on explaining why is it so (all the blind spots and biases) and gets quite depressing. Is acting good possible at all?
As a whole a very insightful book on our behaviour from the ethical point of view. (Social) psychologist take on ethics, instead of philosopher.
Most of the book goes on explaining why is it so (all the blind spots and biases) and gets quite depressing. Is acting good possible at all?
As a whole a very insightful book on our behaviour from the ethical point of view. (Social) psychologist take on ethics, instead of philosopher.
October 26, 2017
mi s-a parut ca se repeta ideile si ca nu inveti neaparat ceva din carte. inafara de faptul ca trebuie mereu sa alegem Should (etic) si nu want, indiferent de situatie si sa ne gandim la viitor nu la o perioada apropiata
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