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McCombs School of Business

Video Series

Concepts Unwrapped

To make ethical decisions, we must be aware of the biases and pressures that influence our thinking. Too often, we are unaware of these subtle pressures. Short, research-based videos explore the behavioral ethics concepts and general ethics principles that inform our choices, decisions, and actions.

Appropriation & Attribution

Appropriation & Attribution

Attribution is giving credit where credit is due. Appropriation is the complex borrowing of ideas, images, symbols, sounds, and identity from others.

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All is Not Relative

All is Not Relative

Relativism is the belief that a harmful act is ‘right’ if the perpetrator claims it is ‘right,’ but what is right and what is wrong is not always relative.

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Bounded Ethicality

Bounded Ethicality

Bounded ethicality explains how social pressures and psychological processes cause us to behave in ways that are inconsistent with our own values.

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Causing Harm

Causing Harm

Causing harm explores the types of harm that may be caused to people or groups and the potential reasons we may have for justifying these harms.

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Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance is the psychological discomfort that we feel when our minds entertain two contradictory concepts at the same time.

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Conflict of Interest

Conflict of Interest

Conflict of interest arises when we have incentives that conflict with our professional duties and responsibilities in ways that harm others and society.

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Conformity Bias

Conformity Bias

Conformity bias describes our tendency to take cues for proper behavior from the actions of others rather than exercise our own independent judgment.

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Ethical Fading

Ethical Fading

Ethical fading occurs when we are so focused on other aspects of a decision that its ethical dimensions fade from view.

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Framing

Framing

Framing describes how our responses to situations, including our ethical judgments, are impacted simply by how those situations are posed or viewed.

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Fundamental Attribution Error

Fundamental Attribution Error

Fundamental attribution error describes how, when judging others’ actions, we tend to give too much causal weight to their character and not enough to the circumstances in which they acted.

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Fundamental Moral Unit

Fundamental Moral Unit

When making ethical decisions, the one consideration that a theory favors over all other considerations is called the Fundamental Moral Unit.

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Implicit Bias

Implicit Bias

Implicit bias exists when people unconsciously hold attitudes toward others or associate stereotypes with them.

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Incentive Gaming

Incentive Gaming

Incentive gaming, or “gaming the system,” refers to when we figure out ways to increase our rewards for performance without actually improving our performance.

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Incrementalism

Incrementalism

Referred to as the slippery slope, incrementalism describes how we unconsciously lower our ethical standards over time through small changes in behavior.

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Intro to Behavioral Ethics

Intro to Behavioral Ethics

Behavioral Ethics investigates why people make the ethical (and unethical) decisions that they do in order to gain insights into how people can improve their ethical decision-making and behavior.

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Loss Aversion

Loss Aversion

We hate losses about twice as much as we enjoy gains, meaning we are more likely to act unethically to avoid a loss than to secure a gain. This phenomenon is known as loss aversion.

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Moral Agent & Subject of Moral Worth

Moral Agent & Subject of Moral Worth

A moral agent is capable of acting with reference to right and wrong, and has the power to intentionally cause harm to another. A moral subject is anything that can be harmed.

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Moral Emotions

Moral Emotions

Moral emotions are the feelings and intuitions that play a major role in most of our ethical decision making and actions.

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Moral Equilibrium

Moral Equilibrium

When we do something good we get to thinking of ourselves as pretty good people, and can then give ourselves license to fail to live up to our own ethical standards. This phenomenon is known as moral equilibrium.

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Moral Imagination

Moral Imagination

Moral imagination is our ability to think outside the box and envision ways to be both ethical and successful.

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Moral Muteness

Moral Muteness

Moral muteness is when we communicate in ways that obscure our moral beliefs and commitments, or don’t voice moral sentiments at all.

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Moral Myopia

Moral Myopia

Moral myopia is a distortion of moral vision that keeps ethical issues from coming clearly into focus.

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Obedience to Authority

Obedience to Authority

Obedience to authority describes our tendency to please authority figures. We may place too much emphasis on that goal and, consciously or subconsciously, subordinate the goal of acting ethically.

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Overconfidence Bias

Overconfidence Bias

The overconfidence bias is our tendency to be more confident in our ability to act ethically than is objectively justified by our abilities and moral character.

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Representation

Representation

Media representations of individuals or groups can hurt by reflecting stereotypes and mistaken beliefs or can help by being truthful and inclusive.

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Role Morality

Role Morality

Role morality is the tendency we have to use different moral standards for the different roles we play in society.

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Self-serving Bias

Self-serving Bias

The self-serving bias causes us to see things in ways that support our best interests and our pre-existing points of view.

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Tangible & Abstract

Tangible & Abstract

Tangible and abstract describes how we react more to vivid, immediate inputs than to ones removed in time and space, meaning we can pay insufficient attention to the adverse consequences our actions have on others.

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