Morality Bites
We’ve watched all things personal undergo very public makeovers on reality TV—our noses, our houses, our cars and jobs and spouses. But something more fundamental may have quietly fallen victim to a makeover as well: our moral identities.
Moral identity is how you view and describe yourself in ethical terms—honest, caring, opposed to cheating, committed to doing the right thing, etc. But two business researchers say people with a strong sense of moral awareness can actually become the biggest failures in the face of moral challenges.
In a study reported by LiveScience.com and originally published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, the researchers asked a group of people if they considered themselves moral, and if they would cheat on a test.
The people who said they would never cheat described themselves as very moral—no surprise. But the people who said they would indeed cheat also described themselves as very moral. Huh?
The study deduced that when a person with a strong moral identity is faced with a moral decision, they choose their fate—for good or bad—and then pursue it until the extreme end, driven by their extreme moral identity.
In other words, they justify cheating as a means to a moral end, as in this example given by one of the researchers: “If I cheat, then I’ll get into get into graduate school. And if I get into graduate school, then I can become a doctor. And think about all the people I’m going to help when I’m a doctor.”
Is doing the wrong thing—but claiming it’s for the right reasons—ever really right?
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Doing the wrong thing and claiming it’s for the right reasons is never right. For example “cheating” doesn’t teach you anything except learning how not to learn and work hard. What good are those good grades going to be when you somehow can’t remember where the gallbladder is located at in the middle of surgery.
Kina Barnum | 1 year, 11 months ago
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Relative Morality
Many cultural critics decry moral relativism. However, the reality is that we live in a world with relative morality. Things that are generally accepted include: killing in self-defense; just war theory; cultural morality of food (in the U.S. eating dogs is suspect, in other cultures it is acceptable).
My point is that there are few clear cut issues of right and wrong.
I know folks are thinking “cheating is different.” I would argue not so much. The post does not mention how many people felt cheating was moral. If it is around 5% then it would signify people on the “bad” end of a bell curve distribution of the population. And thus indicate that bad folks rationalize their actions. However, if the percentage is 20%, then it is much more likely that our societal mores encourage an end-justifies-the-means mentality.
Philip Zimbardo has argued that there are three levels of causation for immoral actions:
Dispositional (individual)
Situational and
Systemic.
However, the common response to immorality is to blame the individual and ignore the situation and system in which the individual acted. Perhaps people see themselves as moral even if they acknowledge a willingness to cheat because the current systems (corporate, political, academic) allow/encourage ends and not means.
Randy Yale | 1 year, 11 months ago
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Moral Dilemma, Ethical Consciousness
Cheating we know is wrong and doing it for what we think is the right reason, to be of help to others, is also wrong. But, in a world where we are killing innocent people, being killed by terrorists, and having to see poverty, and disease everywhere we look, cheating is irrelevant when done for the right reasons. I am a “moral” person but if it came down to cheating to be able to save others or be of service to others, I would have a personal conversation with God and ask forgiveness, but I would do what was best for the other, meaning to change the face of poverty or find homes for the homeless, cures for diseases. Cheating is the least concern when such huge humane injustices are taking place.
AnnMarie Cunniff | 1 year, 11 months ago
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Critical thinking
Why is it that whenever the topic of right and wrong is discussed it inevitably revolves around religion or god or some morality thing?. There is no dilemma. If you do something that hurts yourself or someone else you absolutely know it and you take responsibility and consequences that go along with it. If you cheat, you hurt yourself and eventually others. There is no guilt or shame or some morality issue at play here, you cheated, that it…deal with it.
Now I know I there are many reasons why someone might cheat and that there differences in the degrees of cheating etc. etc, but the outcome is unarguable. People can justify, blame, seek some form of absolution from it all they want, but the cold hard truth is cheating is cheating.
I have cheated and I certainly don’t need a big drawn out study or some specialist to tease out the reasons of why I did it and how I felt about it. I know exactly what I did and why I did it. I knew the consequences if I were to get caught and I ultimately knew the longer term consequences if I got away with it. I would venture a guess that most if not all people have the same understanding when they cheat and if they say otherwise it would be a lie. And that is a whole other topic of discussion…
Ben B | 1 year, 10 months ago
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Bravo! I think there isn’t any grey area of right and wrong. You cheat inevitably you cheat yourself. And the one thing school doesn’t teach you is critical thinking.
Kina Barnum | 1 year, 10 months ago
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If there were no religion, God or other morality thing, then cheating would not be an issue at all. How would we determine what is right or wrong? We would not have issues about conscience, guilt or morality so the entire topic would be completely irrelevant.
The issue is the results of a study not an opportunity to randomly judge others. I have a tendency to see and believe the best in others, and I hope others feel that way too, so I would first assume someone had not cheated, before I would ever think they had.
I think there will always be a moral gauge about cheating, lying, stealing, etc.and I am grateful for that. Conscience is what tells us what is right or wrong for “us.”
AnnMarie Cunniff | 1 year, 10 months ago
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Well I think part of my point is that indeed people do have a conscience and that in general do understand what is “good and what is “bad” because of that inherent conscience. It is a bit narrow to think that if religion were not determining the rules that are already inherent in human nature then it would be irrelevant. On the contrary, repression of human nature and not the initial belief in that inherent “good” has had far more impact on the history and future of humanity than anything else.
Back to point, it is exactly that inherent understanding of right and wrong and the impact and consequences of decisions and actions made that drives behaviors. So the gauge that drives the threshold of a decision to cheat, steal, lie or any other hurtful behavior is not legislated or governed by anything other than the desire to find a balance of not hurting yourself or others and the happiness that can foster.
Ben B | 1 year, 10 months ago
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Morality Exists "without".
I believe that we are born with the innate ability to be kind and good, but as soon as we are born, our parents, society and our environment influence our decision-making and the very essence of our nature…bringing with it attitudes and ideas that influence who we “become”. The words religion, God, moral, are all just that words. And conscience, I believe is the “ego” and when we separate from the ego, conscience does not exist, “within”.
AnnMarie Cunniff | 1 year, 10 months ago
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Deriving our morals
Annmarie and Ben, you are both in your own ways addressing the existentialist/essentialist question. That is, are we born with a sense of right/wrong or do we choose throughout our lives what we believe and how we live?
Both of these positions miss a central point, which is that much of what we internalize as “our own” values are in fact derived from the world in which we live. There is a fascinating article in last week’s “New Yorker” by Jared Diamond that tells how one culture deals with moral issues that result in life or death. It is totally different than what we consider “right” but is totally internalized by the subject of the article. There seems to be little doubt that we derive much of what we call our own values. There is nothing wrong or necessarily bad with this. However, it has profound implications. Just as we speak the language of those around us, so too we have a language of morality/God/personal-responsibility that is passed on to us. In effect, this gives us a prism that shows our absolutes as not single truths but composites with many different spectrums contributing to their creation.
Randy Yale | 1 year, 10 months ago
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“I am a “moral” person but if it came down to [an immorality] to be able to save others or be of service to others, I would have a personal conversation with God and ask forgiveness, but I would do what was best for the other…” my sentiments exactly….
Cheating, stealing, etc are never “right” per say….but if it directly contributes to a positive then they balance out….you had a bad act you rectified with a good one. Yea, we can be high and mighty and say wrong is wrong, but would you sing that same melody if that wrong saved your life? Yea, there’s right and then the not so right, and most times there is no gray area, but, sometimes there is and we must all be open-minded and not judgmental. What’s best isn’t always what’s right, and what’s right isn’t always what’s best.
Mia | 1 year, 10 months ago
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