Telling people to 'think about their ethics' can actually make dishonest people act even worse.
March 26, 2026
Original Paper
The Unintended Effects of Ethical Decision Aids in Organizations
SSRN · 6468391
The Takeaway
Many companies use ethical contemplation questions to nudge employees toward better behavior. However, researchers found that while this works for people who already value morality, it backfires for those with low moral identity, triggering 'motivated reasoning' that leads them to cheat more than if they hadn't been prompted at all.
From the abstract
Unethical behavior, deception, and fraud are major concerns in corporate governance. This paper examines the effectiveness of contemplation questions (CQs) as ethical decision aids intended to activate moral agency and prompt employees to consider their actions from various perspectives (e.g., self, peers, company). Although we find that 44% of S&P 200 and Fortune Global 200 companies use CQs, their behavioral impact is not well understood. Using two preregistered, incentivized vignette experime