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Nameless + harmless = blameless: When seemingly irrelevant factors influence judgment of (un)ethical behavior

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  • Gino, Francesca
  • Shu, Lisa L.
  • Bazerman, Max H.

Abstract

People often make judgments about the ethicality of others' behaviors and then decide how harshly to punish such behaviors. When they make these judgments and decisions, sometimes the victims of the unethical behavior are identifiable, and sometimes they are not. In addition, in our uncertain world, sometimes an unethical action causes harm, and sometimes it does not. We argue that a rational assessment of ethicality should not depend on the identifiability of the victim of wrongdoing or the actual harm caused if the judge and the decision maker have the same information. Yet in five laboratory studies, we show that these factors have a systematic effect on how people judge the ethicality of the perpetrator of an unethical action. Our studies show that people judge behavior as more unethical when: (1) identifiable vs. unidentifiable victims are involved and (2) the behavior leads to a negative rather than a positive outcome. We also find that people's willingness to punish wrongdoers is consistent with their judgments, and we offer preliminary evidence on how to reduce these biases.

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  • Gino, Francesca & Shu, Lisa L. & Bazerman, Max H., 2010. "Nameless + harmless = blameless: When seemingly irrelevant factors influence judgment of (un)ethical behavior," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 111(2), pages 93-101, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:jobhdp:v:111:y:2010:i:2:p:93-101
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Francesca Gino & Don A. Moore & Max H. Bazerman, 2008. "No harm, no foul: The outcome bias in ethical judgments," Harvard Business School Working Papers 08-080, Harvard Business School, revised Apr 2009.
    2. Eckel, Catherine C. & Grossman, Philip J., 1996. "The relative price of fairness: gender differences in a punishment game," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 143-158, August.
    3. Small, Deborah A & Loewenstein, George, 2003. "Helping a Victim or Helping the Victim: Altruism and Identifiability," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 26(1), pages 5-16, January.
    4. Hershey, John C. & Baron, Jonathan, 1992. "Judgment by outcomes: When is it justified?," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 89-93, October.
    5. Kogut, Tehila & Ritov, Ilana, 2005. "The singularity effect of identified victims in separate and joint evaluations," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 106-116, July.
    6. Jenni, Karen E & Loewenstein, George, 1997. "Explaining the "Identifiable Victim Effect."," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 14(3), pages 235-257, May-June.
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    Cited by:

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    4. Yang, Zhao & Algesheimer, René & Dholakia, Utpal, 2017. "When Ethical Transgressions of Customers Have Beneficial Long-Term Effects in Retailing: An Empirical Investigation," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 93(4), pages 420-439.
    5. Butts, Marcus M. & Lunt, Devin C. & Freling, Traci L. & Gabriel, Allison S., 2019. "Helping one or helping many? A theoretical integration and meta-analytic review of the compassion fade literature," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 16-33.
    6. Sezer, Ovul & Zhang, Ting & Gino, Francesca & Bazerman, Max H., 2016. "Overcoming the outcome bias: Making intentions matter," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 13-26.
    7. Savani, Krishna & King, Dan, 2015. "Perceiving outcomes as determined by external forces: The role of event construal in attenuating the outcome bias," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 136-146.
    8. Helzer, Erik G. & Rosenzweig, Emily, 2020. "Examining the role of harm-to-others in lay perceptions of greed," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 106-114.
    9. Lars Lefgren & Brennan Platt & Joseph Price, 2015. "Sticking with What (Barely) Worked: A Test of Outcome Bias," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(5), pages 1121-1136, May.
    10. Bazerman, Max H. & Sezer, Ovul, 2016. "Bounded awareness: Implications for ethical decision making," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 95-105.
    11. Fanghella, Valeria & Thøgersen, John, 2022. "Experimental evidence of moral cleansing in the interpersonal and environmental domains," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    12. Meier, Pascal Flurin & Flepp, Raphael & Meier, Philippe & Franck, Egon, 2022. "Outcome bias in self-evaluations: Quasi-experimental field evidence from Swiss driving license exams," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 201(C), pages 292-309.
    13. Gago, Andrés, 2021. "Reciprocity and uncertainty: When do people forgive?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    14. Schminke, Marshall & Caldwell, James & Ambrose, Maureen L. & McMahon, Sean R., 2014. "Better than ever? Employee reactions to ethical failures in organizations, and the ethical recovery paradox," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 123(2), pages 206-219.
    15. Lefgren, Lars J. & Platt, Brennan & Price, Joseph & Higbee, Samuel, 2019. "Outcome based accountability: Theory and evidence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 121-137.
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