Unit 03

Why do generally good, honest people sometimes do bad, dishonest things?

Some would argue that every act of true evil started with small indiscretions, so what does the science tell us about why normal, "good" people lie, cheat, steal, and harm?  Can causing harm ever be considered an act of good?  Are there any evidence-based ways to reduce unethical behavior?

To answer these questions we have to explore how the same psychological processes that allow virtually everyone to rationalize small acts of dishonesty can explain grandiose acts of evil.  The more aware we all are of our competing motivations and biased reasoning, the better chance we have of keeping ourselves (and others) honest.  The more we understand the theoretical causes of evil decisions the better able we are to reduce them.

03-A: Minor Indiscretions

• How did Ariely design a study to measure cheating in a controlled laboratory setting?  How does he know if people, on average, cheated? 

  • • What did he conclude in general about the average person?

    • Integrating your knowledge of experimental design, how does random assignment allow us to rule out the possibility that one group of participants was simply better at the matrix puzzle?

• Under what conditions are people more likely to lie, cheat, and steal?  Be clear about the effect of:

  • • Codes of conduct (e.g., honor pledges, religious principles)

    • Psychologically “distant” gains (e.g., tokens)

    • Probability of getting caught lying

    • Witnessing another person behaving dishonestly (peer vs. outsider)

    • The amount to be gained by lying

• How do these conditions relate to Ariely’s theory of two competing motivations?

  • • Why might it be easier to rationalize harm when people other than yourself benefit?

    • Under what circumstances might these conditions relate to real-world situations where people make evil decisions?

It turns out that one of Ariely's studies looking at the placement of honesty agreements and insurance claims was based on fraudulent data, though it's still not clear who is responsible for that.  Subsequent attempts to replicate the study failed, so it is unclear what if any effect placement has on honesty.

03-B: Status & Entitlement

• What is the research evidence that people with an obvious status advantage tend to...

  • • Exhibit a self-serving bias?

    • Act in more anti-social ways?

    • Lie, cheat, and steal more?

    • Steal candy from children?

• How might the psychological effects of status lead to callous greed and greater social inequality?

• What were some of the evidence-based interventions that made advantaged people behave fairly?

03-C: Counterbalancing & Carryover Effects

• What is the difference between a within-subjects and between-subjects experiment?

• What are carryover effects and when are they a potential problem for researchers?  Be prepared to identify three specific carryover effects and give examples of how each would influence the second measure of a DV.

• How can a researcher prevent  carryover effects from biasing the overall results of a within-subjects experiment?  Be clear about how and why random assignment is involved.

Up to this point, we have mostly focused on "between-subjects" experiments - where the sample is divided into two groups, each group experiences a different value of the IV, and the researcher compares the DV between the groups.  However, there are also "within-subjects" experiments in which each participant experiences the various levels of the IV.

For instance, let's imagine that you wanted to know if wearing a special pair of running shoes caused people to run faster.  One option would be to do this as a between-subjects experiment and randomly assign half to wear the new shoes and the other half to wear some control shoe.  The disadvantage here is that the differences in running time might be very small, so we might commit a type-II error and fail to pick up the small but meaningful difference.

If we did this as a within-subjects experiment, we'd have all participants run twice - once with the new shoes and once with the control ones.  This way, even if there were small improvements, we're more likely to be able to measure them.

Of course, if we do this as a within-subjects design, we have one problem... what if people run faster the second time no matter what shoes they're wearing because they are warmed up?  What if they run slower because they are tired?  Luckily, we address these issues by counterbalancing the order.

READ: Carryover Effects and Counterbalancing

03-D: Perpetrators vs. Victims

• How did Baumeister, Stillwell, & Wotman (1990) demonstrate that both victims and perpetrators have biased views of an incident?  Be prepared to summarize their methodology and results and explain how they prevented carryover effects from biasing the overall results of the study.

• How did Stillweli & Baumeister's (1997) demonstrate that these biases can affect our memories of an incident even when we weren't personally involved?  What was the IV?  In what specific ways were the accounts biased for each role? 

READ: The abstract of Stillweli & Baumeister's (1997) study for a quick summary of how people's accounts of a story they only imagined being in were nonetheless biased.  You do not need to access the full article.

03-E: Implicit Bias

• How are implicit attitudes different from explicit ones?

• Why are implicit attitudes challenging to measure?

• How does the implicit association Test (IAT) attempt to measure implicit attitudes?

• How do we define and differentiate stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination?

  • • How do these three things map onto the ABCs of psychology?

    • How can each be both implicit and explicit?

Before we learn more about the concept, I would like you to complete a short online activity designed to measure the subconscious biases that we might have.

STUDENTS: Be sure you have the worksheet quiz open in another tab, you'll be asked a few questions about the results screen.  You may also want to take a screenshot of the results screen for your later reference.

Closing Thoughts...

Building on our understanding of the interactions of affect, behavior, and cognition, you have now seen how subconscious thoughts and feelings can influence your memories, judgements, decisions, and actions without you even realizing it.  Those helpful cognitive processes can also bias our decisions about what is fair and reasonable behavior, even to the point at which we do something deeply dishonest, unfair, or even cruel.  Only by acknowledging your implicit thoughts and feelings, rather than denying or ignoring them, you can reflect in the moment and correct for their influence before you make the wrong move.

If you're interested in learning more...

A 2007 study by Gailliot and Baumeister entitled "The physiology of Willpower" examined how glucose affects self-control. The sections listed below include some of the main findings from the study. Though this research is interesting and gives us some insight into how brain physiology is related to conscious action, the exact role of glucose in self-control is complicated.