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Good Without Knowing it: Subtle Contextual Cues can Activate Moral Identity and Reshape Moral Intuition

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Intuition is the supra-logic that cuts out all the routine processes of thought and leaps straight from the problem to the answer.—Robert Graves

Abstract

The role of moral intuition (i.e., a set of implicit processes which occur automatically and at the fringe of conscious awareness) has been increasingly implicated in business decisions and (un)ethical business behavior. But troublingly, because implicit processes often operate outside of conscious awareness, decision makers are generally unaware of their influence. We tested whether subtle contextual cues for identity can alter implicit beliefs. In two studies, we found that contextual cues which nonconsciously prime moral identity weaken the implicit association between the categories of “business” and “ethical,” an implicit association which has previously been linked to unethical decision making. Further, changes in this implicit association mediated the relationship between contextually primed moral identity and concern for external stakeholder groups, regardless of self-reported moral identity. Thus, our results show that subtle contextual cues can lead individuals to render more ethical judgments, by automatically restructuring moral intuition below the level of consciousness.

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Notes

  1. In contrast, because explicitly processed (reflective and self-reported) information appears to have little or no effect on implicit processes (Gregg et al. 2006), we expect self-reported moral identity to have little influence on implicit beliefs.

  2. The D algorithm uses as numerator the difference between mean latencies of the two combined tasks. These means included error trials, which incorporated a time penalty because the subject was obliged to complete each trial with the correct response. The numerator difference is divided by an "inclusive" standard deviation computed from all of the subject's latencies in both combined tasks (not a pooled SD for the two tasks). Further computational details are available in Greenwald et al. (2003), which showed that the D algorithm is psychometrically superior to various alternatives.

  3. An alternative dependent measure was constructed by creating a dummy variable with 1 indicating participants listed both parties that are directly (e.g., Gunderall’s stockholders, managers, employees, and suppliers such as RMSC and Raytech) and not directly (e.g., local residents, local natural environment, and animals living in the environment) related to Gunderall’s revenue stream and 0 indicating participants who only listed those parties directly related to Gunderall’s revenue stream. Results suggested that as the strength of the association between business and ethical increases, people are less likely to take into account the interests of parties that are indirectly related to Gunderall. Parallel significant effects were found when counting the total number of stakeholders listed, suggesting the DV of moral concern is robust to variations in measurement conceptualization.

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    Authors and Affiliations

    1. Oregon State University College of Business, 370 Austin Hall, Corvallis, OR, 97331, USA

      Keith Leavitt

    2. Asper School of Business, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada

      Lei Zhu

    3. Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

      Karl Aquino

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    1. Keith Leavitt
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    2. Lei Zhu
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    Correspondence to Keith Leavitt.

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    Keith Leavitt and Lei Zhu have contributed equally to this work.

    Appendix

    Appendix

    Scenario from Study 2

    The following scenario will ask you to put yourself in the place of a manager at Gunderall Corporation, a leader in plastic injection molding and small parts manufacturing.

    You have been promoted to a more senior management position within Gunderall Corporation, and are learning more about the Business. Gunderall works with two principle suppliers: the RMSC company out of Dubai which supplies crude oil, and Raytech in Philadelphia which makes all of your product packaging. Recently, you have been hearing rumors that Raytech is having labor disputes with its union. And it is no secret that RMSC uses cheap labor from nearby countries and works them under hard conditions.

    Gunderall had their IPO and became a publicly traded company just 6 months ago; thus, the initial stockholders have a lot riding on your decisions and abilities. Because of its rapid growth and unique strategic positioning, Gunderall was able to recruit some very talented young managers. These MBAs could have been making more money had they gone somewhere else, but Gunderall was able to recruit them with greater responsibility than they would have found elsewhere.

    Gunderall also employs 1316 people at its home plant in Pittsburgh. Gunderall is viewed as a key employer in an area hit hard by the recession. Most manufacturing plants in the area have closed down, creating extremely high unemployment rates in a traditionally blue-collar town.

    Further, Pittsburgh has some moderate issues related to public health and water quality. Although injection molding does not produce the kind of waste the old steel mills did, Gunderall’s products and processes are not exactly ‘environmentally friendly.’

    You are starting to realize that as a manager here, you will have a lot of different groups competing for your attention!

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    Leavitt, K., Zhu, L. & Aquino, K. Good Without Knowing it: Subtle Contextual Cues can Activate Moral Identity and Reshape Moral Intuition. J Bus Ethics 137, 785–800 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-015-2746-6

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