Cognitive dissonance is the psychological discomfort that we feel when our minds entertain two contradictory concepts at the same time.
Ethics Unwrapped Blog
Moral Emotions
Moral emotions are the feelings and intuitions that play a major role in most of our ethical decision making and actions.
Implicit Bias
By Ethics Unwrapped
Implicit bias exists when people unconsciously hold attitudes toward others or associate stereotypes with them.
Robert Bentley: A Campaign Affair
By Ethics Unwrapped
Alabama governor Robert Bentley’s misuse of campaign funds for an extramarital affair cost him more than his political career.
OxyContin: Whale Watching
By Ethics Unwrapped
Doctors who overprescribed OxyContin were nicknamed “whales” by Purdue Pharma. While doctors pushed pills, Purdue’s profits were pushed to new heights.
Volkswagen’s Emissions Evasion
By Ethics Unwrapped
Faced with an emissions test their vehicles could not pass, Volkswagen created a “defeat device” in their engines to sidestep regulations.
United Airlines: Grounded
By Ethics Unwrapped
After passenger David Dao was forcibly removed from a United Airlines flight, many questioned why airline policies and procedures would allow such a violent deplaning.
Theranos’ Bad Blood
By Ethics Unwrapped
Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes promised to revolutionize blood testing technology, but behind all the hype was a massive fraud.
Steering Student Athletes
By Ethics Unwrapped
Apparel companies, financial advisers, and managers bribed coaches and families to persuade top student athletes to attend certain schools.
Samsung’s Political Connections
By Ethics Unwrapped
Samsung leader Lee Jae-yong used his company’s economic power to influence president Park Geun-hye, sparking a corruption scandal and political fallout.
Wells Fargo Fraud
By Ethics Unwrapped
Under pressure to meet steep sales goals and incentives, Wells Fargo employees created over a million fraudulent accounts in their customers’ names.
Raj Rajaratnam: Insider Trader
By Ethics Unwrapped
Hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam was known for his savvy investments until an investigation found him guilty of insider trading.
Penn State Scandal
By Ethics Unwrapped
Following the conviction of assistant coach Jerry Sandusky for sexual abuse, debate continues on how much university officials and head coach Joe Paterno knew of the crimes.
Weinstein & Hollywood’s “Open Secret”
By Ethics Unwrapped
Allegations of sexual assault by film producer Harvey Weinstein prompted many in Hollywood to reckon with how much they knew about his behavior and why they did not speak up.
Tesco Cooks the Books
By Ethics Unwrapped
Amid declining sales, British supermarket chain Tesco overstated profits to maintain company value. The irregularities in accounting did not go unnoticed.
Research Conflicts at UT Austin
By Ethics Unwrapped
University of Texas at Austin professor Chip Groat did not see a conflict of interest between his research on hydraulic fracturing and his payments from a Houston-based fracking company.
Packing Peanuts for Profit
By Ethics Unwrapped
Fearing a loss of profits, the Peanut Corporation of America knowingly shipped peanuts that were contaminated with salmonella.
OxyContin & the Opioid Epidemic
By Ethics Unwrapped
Purdue Pharma aggressively marketed OxyContin as a safe pain medicine. As sales and profits increased, so did the number of patients addicted to painkillers.
Michael Flynn: Under Investigation
By Ethics Unwrapped
Michael Flynn sparked controversy by leading a chant to “lock up” Hillary Clinton, but soon he pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.
Making the Grade
By Ethics Unwrapped
Lofty standardized testing goals and unequal resources lead teachers and administrators in the Atlanta Public Schools district to cheat.
Final Exam Heist
By Ethics Unwrapped
University of Kentucky student Henry Lynch II crawled through the ducts of his professor’s office to steal the final exam, but later confessed to the crime.
FIFA Kickbacks: World Cup Corruption
By Ethics Unwrapped
Investigations into international soccer organization FIFA uncover extensive bribery and kickbacks among officials around the world.
Equifax’s Breach of Trust
By Ethics Unwrapped
Credit reporting agency Equifax took several weeks to respond to a cybersecurity data breach, putting millions of people at risk of identity theft.
EpiPen: Out of Reach
By Ethics Unwrapped
Pharmaceutical company Mylan defends the drastic price increase of EpiPen, but patients who need the drug question Mylan’s reasons for the outrageous spike.
Daraprim Price Hike
By Ethics Unwrapped
While many were outraged when the price of Daraprim rose from $13.50 per tablet to $750, Turing Pharmaceuticals CEO Martin Skreli saw himself as a Robin Hood.
Curbing Corruption: GlaxoSmithKline in China
By Ethics Unwrapped
British pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline bribed its way into many hospitals in China, but Chinese regulators did not tolerate the company’s corruption.
Countrywide’s Subprime Scandal
By Ethics Unwrapped
Countrywide Financial was one of the largest mortgage lenders in the United States, but CEO Angelo Mozilo did not heed his own warnings in the lead-up to the 2007 financial crisis.
Baylor’s Silence on Sexual Assault
By Ethics Unwrapped
While the Baylor University football team was winning on the field, university officials failed to take action when allegations of sexual assault by student athletes emerged.
Armstrong’s Doping Downfall
By Ethics Unwrapped
Cyclist Lance Armstrong thought his use of performance-enhancing drugs was a way to level the playing field in a sport with pervasive doping.
Academic Fraud at UNC
By Ethics Unwrapped
UNC Chapel Hill enrolled student athletes with poor academic performance in fake classes so they would remain eligible to play. The classes soon enabled widespread academic fraud.
Compounding Illness
By Cara Biasucci
The New England Compounding Center, a compounding pharmacy, knowingly produced and shipped contaminated drugs, leading to a deadly outbreak of meningitis.
Collapse at Rana Plaza
By Cara Biasucci
The deadly collapse of a garment factory building in Bangladesh stirs debate over worker safety in the effort to drive down prices for international manufacturers and consumers.
Scandals Illustrated
By rsalles
25+ short video prompts summarize recent scandals in the news across a range of industries. Each video includes a case study with ethical insight and related terms.
Appropriation & Attribution
By Ethics Unwrapped
Attribution is giving credit where credit is due. Appropriation is the complex borrowing of ideas, images, symbols, sounds, and identity from others.
Representation
By Ethics Unwrapped
Media representations of individuals or groups can hurt by reflecting stereotypes and mistaken beliefs or can help by being truthful and inclusive.
Systematic Moral Analysis
By Ethics Unwrapped
Systematic moral analysis is a tool that helps us to think through ethically complex situations.
Legal Rights & Ethical Responsibilities
By Ethics Unwrapped
The relationship between laws and ethics is not always clear. Although we may have a legal right to do something, this does not necessarily mean it is ethically justified.
Ethical Leadership, Part 2: Best Practices
Psychological research provides guidance as to how leaders can create a workplace culture that encourages ethical behavior by employees.
Ethical Leadership, Part 1: Perilous at the Top
The moral example set by leaders has a major impact on the behavior of their subordinates, both good and bad. Despite career success, leaders are particularly vulnerable to ethical lapses.
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.
Being Your Best Self, Part 4: Moral Action
Moral action involves taking the necessary steps to transform the intent to do the right thing into reality. This includes moral ownership, moral efficacy, and moral courage.
Being Your Best Self, Part 3: Moral Intent
Moral intent is the desire to act ethically when facing a decision and overcome the rationalization to not be ethical “this time.”
Being Your Best Self, Part 2: Moral Decision Making
Moral decision making is the ability to produce a reasonable and defensible answer to an ethical question.
Being Your Best Self, Part 1: Moral Awareness
Moral awareness is the ability to detect and appreciate the ethical aspects of a decision that one must make.
Causing Harm
Causing harm explores the different types of harm that may be caused to people or groups and the potential reasons we may have for justifying these harms.
Moral Myopia
By Ethics Unwrapped
Moral myopia is a distortion of moral vision that keeps ethical issues from coming clearly into focus.
Moral Muteness
By Ethics Unwrapped
Moral muteness is when we communicate in ways that obscure our moral beliefs and commitments, or don’t voice moral sentiments at all.
Moral Imagination
By Ethics Unwrapped
Moral imagination is our ability to think outside the box and envision ways to be both ethical and successful.
In It To Win
By praxent
The story of super-lobbyist and convicted felon Jack Abramoff reveals the behavioral ethics biases that led to his downfall. A documentary and 6 short videos. Filmed on campus.
Giving Voice to Values
By praxent
8 short videos explore values-driven leadership, and present the seven principles that support it in life and work. Based on Giving Voice to Values by Mary C. Gentile, PhD.
Concepts Unwrapped
By praxent
30+ short videos explain behavioral ethics concepts and basic ethics principles. Research-based, animated, and with students’ life examples.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
GVV Pillar 7: Reasons & Rationalizations
By anticipating the typical reasons & rationalizations given for ethically questionable behavior, you are able to identify and prepare well-reasoned responses.
GVV Pillar 6: Voice
You are more likely to say words that you’ve pre-scripted for yourself, and more likely to “voice” your values, with scripting and practice.
GVV Pillar 5: Self-Knowledge & Alignment
Self-knowledge and alignment means to voice and act on your values in a way that is consistent with who you are and builds on your strengths.
GVV Pillar 4: Purpose
Define your personal and professional purpose explicitly and broadly before conflicts arise, and appeal to this sense of purpose in others.
GVV Pillar 3: Normalization
Normalization means expecting values conflicts so that you approach them calmly and competently. Over-reaction can limit your choices unnecessarily.
GVV Pillar 2: Choice
Believe that you have a choice about voicing your values and know what has helped – and hindered you – in the past so you can work around these factors.
GVV Pillar 1: Values
Know and appeal to a short list of widely shared values. Dont assume too little or too much commonality with the viewpoints of others.
Intro to GVV
Giving Voice to Values is learning about how to act on your values effectively – not about wondering whether you could.
In It To Win: Jack & Moral Equilibrium
By praxent
Abramoff’s version of moral equilibrium, which describes our tendency to keep a running scoreboard in our heads that compares our self-image as ethical people to our actual behavior.
In It To Win: Jack & Role Morality
By praxent
Abramoff’s version of role morality, which is our tendency to use different moral standards as we play different “roles” in society.
In It To Win: Jack & Self-Serving Bias
By praxent
Abramoff’s version of the self-serving bias, which causes us to see things in ways that support our best interests and our pre-existing beliefs.
In It To Win: Jack & Overconfidence Bias
By praxent
Abramoff’s version of overconfidence bias, which is our tendency to be more confident about our moral character and our ability to act ethically than is objectively justified.
In It To Win: Jack & Rationalizations
By praxent
Abramoff’s version of rationalizations, which are the excuses we make for not living up to our own, or society’s, ethical standards.
In It To Win: Jack & Framing
By praxent
Abramoff’s version of framing, which describes how our judgments, including our ethical judgments, are affected just by how a situation is posed or viewed.
In It To Win: The Jack Abramoff Story
By praxent
Featuring former lobbyist and convicted felon Jack Abramoff, this 25-minute documentary explores the biases and pressures he faced, and the consequences of his unethical decisions.
Bounded Ethicality
By praxent
Bounded ethicality explains how predictable organizational pressures and psychological processes cause us to engage in ethically questionable behavior that is inconsistent with our own values and preferences.
Conflict of Interest
By praxent
Conflict of interest arises when we have incentives that conflict with our professional duties and responsibilities in ways that cause harm to others and to society.
Conformity Bias
By praxent
Conformity bias refers to our tendency to take cues for proper behavior in most contexts from the actions of others rather than exercise our own independent judgment.
Ethical Fading
By praxent
Ethical fading occurs when we are so focused on other aspects of a decision that its ethical dimensions fade from view.
Framing
By praxent
Framing describes how our responses to situations, including our ethical judgments, are impacted just by how those situations are posed or viewed.
Incentive Gaming
By praxent
Incentive gaming, or “gaming the system,” refers to when we figure out ways to increase our rewards for performance without actually improving our performance.
Incrementalism
By praxent
Referred to as the slippery slope, incrementalism describes how we unconsciously lower our ethical standards over time through small changes in behavior.
Moral Agent & Subject of Moral Worth
By praxent
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.
Moral Equilibrium
By praxent
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.
Self-serving Bias
By praxent
The self-serving bias causes us to see things in ways that support our best interests and our pre-existing points of view.
Overconfidence Bias
By praxent
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.
Role Morality
By praxent
Role morality is the tendency we have to use different moral standards for the different roles we play in society.
Fundamental Moral Unit
By praxent
When making ethical decisions, the one consideration that a theory favors over all other considerations is called the Fundamental Moral Unit.