IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/judgdm/v12y2017i6p563-571_4.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Between me and we: The importance of self-profit versus social justifiability for ethical decision making

Author

Listed:
  • Klein, Sina A.
  • Thielmann, Isabel
  • Hilbig, Benjamin E.
  • Zettler, Ingo

Abstract

Current theories of dishonest behavior suggest that both individual profits and the availability of justifications drive cheating. Although some evidence hints that cheating behavior is most prevalent when both self-profit and social justifications are present, the relative impact of each of these factors is insufficiently understood. This study provides a fine-grained analysis of the trade-off between self-profit versus social justifiability. In a non-student online sample, we assessed dishonest behavior in a coin-tossing task, involving six conditions which systematically varied both self-profit and social justifiability (in terms of social welfare), such that a decrease in the former was associated with the exact same increase in the latter. Results showed that self-profit outweighed social justifiability, but that there was also an effect of social justifications.

Suggested Citation

  • Klein, Sina A. & Thielmann, Isabel & Hilbig, Benjamin E. & Zettler, Ingo, 2017. "Between me and we: The importance of self-profit versus social justifiability for ethical decision making," Judgment and Decision Making, Cambridge University Press, vol. 12(6), pages 563-571, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:judgdm:v:12:y:2017:i:6:p:563-571_4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1930297500006690/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:judgdm:v:12:y:2017:i:6:p:563-571_4. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/jdm .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.