University of Chicago Booth
School of Business
When facing an ethical dilemma,
being aware of the temptation before it happens and thinking about the
long-term consequences of misbehaving could help more people do the right
thing, according to a new study.
Honest behavior is much like
sticking to a diet. When facing an ethical dilemma, being aware of the
temptation before it happens and thinking about the long-term consequences of misbehaving
could help more people do the right thing, according to a new study.
The study, "Anticipating
and Resisting the Temptation to Behave Unethically," by University of
Chicago Booth School of Business Behavioral Science and Marketing Professor
Ayelet Fishbach and Rutgers Business School Assistant Professor Oliver J.
Sheldon, was recently published in the Personality and Social Psychology
Bulletin. It is the first study to test how the two separate factors of
identifying an ethical conflict and preemptively exercising self-control
interact in shaping ethical decision-making.
In a series of experiments that
included common ethical dilemmas, such as calling in sick to work and
negotiating a home sale, the researchers found that two factors together promoted
ethical behavior: Participants who identified a potential ethical dilemma as
connected to other similar incidents and who also anticipated the temptation to
act unethically were more likely to behave honestly than participants who did
not.
"Unethical behavior is
rampant across various domains ranging from business and politics to education
and sports," said Fishbach. "Organizations seeking to improve ethical
behavior can do so by helping people recognize the cumulative impact of
unethical acts and by providing warning cues for upcoming temptation."
In one experiment, business
school students were divided into pairs as brokers for the buyer and seller of
a historic New York brownstone. The dilemma: The seller wanted to preserve the
property while the buyer wanted to demolish it and build a hotel. The brokers
for the seller were told to only sell to a buyer who would save the brownstone,
while the brokers for the buyer were told to conceal the buyer's plan to
develop a hotel.
Before the negotiations began, half
of the students were asked to recall a time when they cheated or bent the rules
to get ahead. Only 45 percent of those students thinking about their ethics
ahead of time behaved unethically in the negotiations, while more than
two-thirds, or 67 percent, of the students who weren't reminded of an ethical
temptation in advance, lied in the negotiations in order to close the deal.
In another experiment involving
workplace scenarios, participants were less likely to say it is okay to steal
office supplies, call into work sick when they aren't really ill, or
intentionally work slowly to avoid additional tasks, if they anticipated an
ethical dilemma through a writing exercise in advance and if they considered a
series of six ethical dilemmas all at once.
In other words, people are more
likely to engage in unethical behavior if they believe the act is an isolated
incident and if they don't think about it ahead of time.
The results of the experiments
have the potential to help policy makers, educators and employers devise
strategies to encourage people to behave ethically. For example, a manager
could control costs by emailing employees before a work trip to warn them
against the temptation to inflate expenses. The notice could be even more
effective if the manager reminded employees that the urge to exaggerate
expenses is a temptation they will encounter repeatedly in the future.
Spring
By Gerard Manley Hopkins
Nothing is so beautiful as
Spring –
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely
and lush;
Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and
thrush
Through the echoing timber does
so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like
lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they
brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a
rush
With richness; the racing lambs
too have fair their fling.
What is all this juice and all
this joy?
A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the
beginning
In Eden garden. – Have, get,
before it cloy,
Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with
sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in
girl and boy,
Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy
the winning.
California Senate extends
protections for paid family leave
The Associated
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The
California Senate is advancing a bill that would expand job protections for
those who qualify for paid family leave to care for relatives.
The legislation would ensure
that workers who take paid leave to care for grandparents, grandchildren,
siblings and in-laws have job security when they return.
Previously, care for these
relatives qualified for paid leave but California law didn't ensure they could
retain their job.
The state Senate narrowly
passed SB 406 by Democratic Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson of Santa Barbara on a
21-16 vote Thursday, with Republicans opposed.
It also would lower the
threshold for small businesses to offer these protections, so it applies to
companies with at least 25 employees rather than 50.
Business groups oppose the
expansion and have designated the bill as a "job killer."
Othello
William Shakespeare
“She gave me for my
pains a world of sighs:
She swore, in faith, ‘twas strange, ‘twas passing strange,
'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful:
She wish’d she had not heard it, yet she wish’d
That heaven had made her such a man: she thank’d me,
And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her,
I should but teach him how to tell my story.
And that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake:
She loved me for the dangers I had pass’d,
And I loved her that she did pity them.”
“The
one you love and the one who loves you are never, ever the same person.”
Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters
GOOD WORDS TO HAVE
Frugal: Characterized
by or reflecting economy in the use of resources. Frugal ultimately derives
from the Latin frux, meaning "fruit" or "value," and is
even a distant cousin of the Latin word for "enjoy" (frui). The
connection between fruit/value and restraint was first made in Latin; the
Middle French word that English speakers eventually adopted as frugal came from
the Latin adjective frugalis, a frux descendant meaning "virtuous" or
"frugal." Although English speakers adopted frugal by the early 17th
century, they were already lavishly supplied with earlier coinages to denote
the idea, including sparing and thrifty.
GREAT WRITING
“The teacher is also a woman, but she is
older—in her fifties—and possessed with that bizarre and horrifying cruelty so
common among people who, although feeble in their own lives, have been bestowed
with some level of control over the lives of others.” Gina Nahai, Caspian Rain
Success vs. Happiness: Don't Be
Fooled Into Thinking They're the Same
SARAH VERMUNT
Take a minute to think about
how "successful" you are.
Now think about what criteria
you used to evaluate yourself. Some people might look to their bank account.
Others to various degrees they've collected. Many would look to their
relationships with a spouse, their children, their friends. Some might even
open their closet and look to their collection of designer shoes, bags and
watches.
Do I consider myself
"successful?" I do. I've created a pretty awesome business; I’m well
respected in my field; and I have multiple degrees. I love my home, and my
relationships are strong.
But on the other hand, I don’t
own my home. I sold my condo when I divorced. I’m also overweight, which
doesn’t exactly paint a picture of success -- especially for a woman. Oh, and I
quit my PhD 93 pages into my dissertation.
To some people, I might not
look like a smashing success.
“Doubtless
you do not hold with those (I need not name them to a man of your reading) who
have taught that all matter is sentient, that every atom is a living, feeling,
conscious being. I do. There is no such thing as dead, inert matter: it is all
alive; all instinct with force, actual and potential; all sensitive to the same
forces in its environment and susceptible to the contagion of the higher and
subtler ones residing in such superior organisms as it may be brought into relation
with, as those of man when he is fashioning it into an instrument of his will.
It absorbs something of his intelligence and purpose–more of him in proportion
to the complexity of the resulting machine and that of its work.”
Ambrose Bierce, Moxon’s Master
“Hearts
united in pain and sorrow
will
not be separated by joy and happiness.
Bonds
that are woven in sadness
are
stronger than the ties of joy and pleasure.
Love
that is washed by tears
will
remain eternally pure and faithful.”
Kahlil
Gibran
“It has been said that life has
treated me harshly; and sometimes I have complained in my heart because many
pleasures of human experience have been withheld from me…if much has been
denied me, much, very much, has been given me…” Helen Keller
“You
once said that you would like to sit beside me while I write. Listen, in that
case I could not write at all. For writing means revealing oneself to excess;
that utmost of self revelation and surrender, in which a human being, when
involved with others, would feel he was losing himself, and from which, therefore,
he will always shrink as long as he in his right mind… That is why one can
never be alone enough when one writes, why there can never be enough silence
around one when one writes, why even night is not night enough.” Franz
Kafka
http://www.amazon.com/No-Time-Say-Goodbye-Memoir/dp/0692361294/
