Safety and Accident Prevention

Managers and Moral Dissonance: Self Justification as a Big Threat to Ethical Management?

Jonathan Lowell

Received: 11 August 2010 / Accepted: 4 June 2011 / Published online: 17 June 2011

� Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

Abstract This article discusses the implications of moral

dissonance for managers, and how dissonance induced self

justification can create an amplifying feedback loop and

downward spiral of immoral behaviour. After addressing

the nature of moral dissonance, including the difference

between moral and hedonistic dissonance, the writer then

focuses on dissonance reduction strategies available to

managers such as rationalization, self affirmation, self

justification, etc. It is noted that there is a considerable

literature which views the organization as a potentially

corrupting institution and a source of acute levels of moral

dissonance. A simplified process model linking immoral

behaviour, dissonance and rationalization is mooted, and

some recent theories which question traditional dissonance

models, including the free choice paradigm (FCP), are

considered. The writer concludes that in the light of the

above mentioned critical theories, it may be assumed that

the levels of moral dissonance, and the extent of rational-

ization/self justification amongst managers, are more a

function of personality and situational factors than previ-

ously assumed.

Keywords Management � Morality � Cognitive dissonance � Moral dissonance � Self justification � Free choice paradigm

Introduction

The truth is that social psychology has not had a major

impact on business ethics. However, a number of ground

breaking theories which have surfaced over the last half

century or so can tell us a great deal about why we might

act morally, or otherwise. Because organizations are

essentially made up of groups, or teams, it is not surprising

that social psychology has something to say about them,

and there has been some recognition, from some

researchers, of a moral dimension. Janis’s famous concept

of groupthink is relevant particularly to ethical decision

making (see Sims 1992). Goffman’s work on impression

management informs us how managers can deflect the

blame for questionable moral conduct (see Konovsky and

Jaster 1989), and Zimbardo’s experiments, according to

Brady and Logsdon (1988, p. 703), can help students of

management understand the importance of ‘‘situational

factors’’ when deciding on issues with moral relevance.

While these theories do contribute to business ethics as a

discipline, I believe that Festinger’s (1962) concept of

cognitive dissonance, above all else, provides a number of

superb insights not only into why managers may behave

immorally, but also into the reasons why they may con-

tinue to behave immorally. Indeed, if Festinger and the

legion of researchers who followed him are right, then

dissonance and the attendant self justification provide the

trigger for even more immoral behaviour. A short scenario

may be useful to illustrate the general concept of cognitive

dissonance.

A Scenario: How Cognitive Dissonance May Occur

Imagine that 1 day after your retirement as a well paid

professor in a university, you find in the street a roll of

bank notes worth £500. There is no way of identifying the

owner of this money. You therefore have two options: take

the money to the nearest police station, or keep it, and tell

no one. While you are considering these options, you start

J. Lowell (&) UWIC, Cardiff, UK

e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]

123

J Bus Ethics (2012) 105:17–25

DOI 10.1007/s10551-011-0931-9

to think about your reduced lifestyle since you retired, and

the constant stream of bills you have to pay. You may also

be trying to imagine the person who would have such a

large amount of money in their pocket or purse. You may

be saying to yourself, ‘‘this money probably belongs to

someone quite rich (and careless!), to whom £500 is a

relatively small amount. She or he may even be a criminal.

If I keep the money, it would not actually hurt anyone

because a rich person could easily afford to lose the money,

while the criminal has stolen it.’’ On the other hand you are

an honest professional (albeit retired) whose moral stan-

dards should be impeachable, and taking the money would

go against everything you stand for.

Cognitive Dissonance and Self Justification

The above scenario would not be unthinkable. In fact, we

probably face many decisions daily, the outcome of which

may make us susceptible to cognitive dissonance: a ‘‘state

of tension whenever an individual holds two cognitions

(ideas, attitudes, beliefs, opinions) that are psychologically

inconsistent’’ (Aronson 1995, p. 178). Cognitive disso-

nance also occurs when one’s behaviour is inconsistent

with one’s cognitions. In the above scenario, if you decide

to keep the money, it is highly probable that you will be

subjected to some kind of dissonance, in that your conduct

(i.e. keeping the money) is at odds with your belief in

honesty.

Dissonance is such an uncomfortable state, that we

intuitively try to reduce it, sometimes by moderating our

actions, but far more often through self justification. In our

scenario, the finder of the money is using self justification

before the fact by questioning whether the money might

belong to a criminal, or by suggesting that the owner may

not care about losing it. After the money is pocketed, the

attempts to reduce dissonance, by self justification, will

probably reach a higher level, with the finder saying to her/

himself, ‘‘Undoubtedly the owner of the money is a crim-

inal and a careless one as well. There is absolutely no way

that the money could be traced anyway, and if the money

had been handed into the police, it probably would have

disappeared. Everyone knows that many policemen are

corrupt.’’ Note that the after the fact self justification is

getting less and less rational, and also most (if not all) the

justifications are external to the person experiencing the

dissonance.

When Leon Festinger and his colleagues coined the term

cognitive dissonance over 50 years ago, they certainly

believed that this concept would yield a lot more research,

but even they did not foresee the massive influence that this

relatively simple concept would have on social psychology

and many other related fields. Since then dissonance theory

has influenced, inter alia, ideas of motivation, perception,

attitude, attribution, decision making, all of which are

highly relevant in management.

Cooper (2007) identifies three aspects of dissonance

which I believe are crucial to understanding it. First, dis-

sonance possesses a magnitude. Or to put it another way,

there are levels of dissonance. The higher the level of

dissonance, the stronger the drive will be to reduce or

eliminate it. Second, and tangentially, ‘‘not all cognitions

have equal importance’’ (p. 8). So, for example, if we

experience dissonance because we have failed to pay a bill

on time, we can reduce that dissonance by changing our

attitude to punctual payments of bills (i.e. making payment

less important in our mind). Third, because it is easier for

people to change attitudes, rather than behaviour, disso-

nance theories tend to deal with attitudes and those

changes.

Furthermore, the need to reduce dissonance is felt more

acutely when the person experiences or identifies with one

or more of these factors (Sears et al. 1991, pp. 164–166):

1. Irrevocable commitment: Acute dissonance could

occur if, for instance, you have signed a watertight

contract for the supply of components which turn out

to be unsuitable. However, if the contract has a ‘‘get

out clause’’ then the dissonance will be less. Also, if a

bribe has been accepted, it would very difficult to

rescind that act and eventually the ensuing dissonance

and other consequences will have to be faced.

2. Foreseeable or foreseen consequences: Dissonance is

more acute if you have taken a particular course of

action which turns out to be erroneous, when the

evidence was obvious and/or compelling. Imagine you

are the manager of a factory and you give permission

for an employee to empty toxic material into the river,

which action leads to the death of thousands of fish. It

is probable those consequences were both foreseeable

and foreseen, and your dissonance is acute because you

were aware of what either could or would have

happened.

3. Responsibility for consequences: Despite the fact that

foreseeable and foreseen consequences lead to height-

ened dissonance (see above), if you believe that you

are personally not responsible for a harmful act, then

dissonance will probably be slight or non existent. If a

CEO ordered you to put toxic waste in the river, and

you perceive or feel that you are therefore not

responsible, dissonance will be minimal whether the

consequences were foreseen or foreseeable. Con-

versely the CEO as the responsible person, and

assuming the consequences were foreseeable or fore-

seen, would be vulnerable to high levels of dissonance.

4. Effort: Quite simply, the more you put into an act,

which has harmful consequences, the more dissonance

18 J. Lowell

123

you experience. If you spend much money, time and

effort on a pet project which goes wrong, the stronger

the need to justify that project. Should your organisa-

tion use a selection process which puts potential

employees through a rigorous, time consuming and

stressful selection process, the more the new employ-

ees will value their new positions, regardless of their

experiences in the jobs. The individual employee’s

perception of the job will be consonant with the

difficult selection process, and his/her efforts in

gaining that position.

Ultimately, all theories of dissonance highlight and

assume a psychological need for consistency and conso-

nance, a need so strong that Sears et al. (1991, p. 157),

agreeing with Festinger (1962), state that dissonance

‘‘operates much like any other drive: if we are hungry, we

do something to reduce our hunger; if we are afraid we do

something to reduce our fear; if we feel dissonance we do

something to reduce it also.’’ However, what has to be

borne in mind is that when dissonance triggers self justi-

fication, it is the self justification which directly causes the

reappraisal of motives, attitude, self concept, etc., as a

person seeks to rationalize the dissonant behaviour. So,

when we discuss the effects of dissonance, we are often

referring to self justification.

Moral and Hedonistic Dissonance, External

and Internal Justification

This powerful drive to reduce dissonance, mainly through

self justification, is certainly activated when we think we

have done something morally wrong, and because of our

inherent sense of morality, to some degree innate and then

honed by our environment (see Bloom 2005; Hauser 2007;

Wright 1996, etc.), we feel this dissonance very acutely.

This is what we label ‘‘moral dissonance.’’

Moral dissonance occurs when a person’s behaviour or

general cognitions are in conflict with his/her moral values.

Or to put it another way moral dissonance is cognitive

dissonance, only with a moral dimension. Following on

from Holland et al. (2002) I divide cognitive dissonance

into two types: moral dissonance and hedonistic (or,

hedonic) dissonance. In my model moral dissonance not

only has a moral dimension as stated, but the term also

suggests (in line with Holland et al. 2002) that the sup-

posedly immoral act harms another person. Lying, fraud,

theft and keeping lost money, as above, would be obvious

examples. In order to reduce moral dissonance we would

normally employ external justification, by which we min-

imize our responsibility for the dissonant act by calling on

excuses out of our control. In our scenario of the found

money the justifications ranged from ‘‘the money belongs

to a thief’’ to ‘‘the police are corrupt.’’ In contrast, hedo-

nistic dissonance occurs when our actions harm ourselves.

Going on a spending spree or betting on horses when we

have very little money might be an example of this, and we

justify the act by trivialising it and/or its harmful conse-

quences on us. Thus, we might say ‘‘it’s only money’’ or

‘‘I’ll soon get it back.’’ This is internal justification.

Moral Dissonance, Managers and Dissonance

Reduction Strategies

Can Organizations Corrupt Managers?

The idea that some organizations are corrupting institu-

tions, whose malign influence creates immoral managers

out of previously moral individuals, may sound somewhat

extreme, but there are a few people, and not extremists,

willing to argue the case (see Cialdini 1996; Darley 1992,

1996; Bakan 2004). Darley in particular has focussed on

the socialization of individuals into corrupt ways within

organizations, in effect, accusing organizations of deindi-

viduation, by which people are unable to make moral

judgments as morally sentient beings. Here, corporate

culture ensures that decision makers have little choice

when faced with alternative actions: moral actions which

would harm the company’s performance, or immoral

actions which would boost the firm’s profits. In so many

cases, according to Darley, the latter action is chosen.

However, although Darley does not deal with the discom-

fort or dissonance of managers caught up in a corrupt

organizational system, he does call for a new social science

which would explain how ‘‘the individual participates in

being trained in the social movement and continues to

access individual-level skills in the service of the patho-

logical group projects’’ (p. 41). Also, I would suggest, we

need to know to what extent managers in ‘‘pathological

organizations’’ experience moral dissonance; and, to what

degree is dissonance moderated by being responsible to

higher authority?

Dissonance in Day-to-Day Management

Even in organizations which may not be described as

‘‘pathological,’’ the situations in which managers may

experience moral dissonance are many and varied, because

they constantly make decisions, frequently using insuffi-

cient information. There is some evidence that immoral

behaviours by managers, and the ensuing moral disso-

nance, lead to a reduction in job satisfaction, but the survey

by Viswesvaran and Deshpande (1996) was limited and did

not address the issue of justification. Moral dissonance is

Managers and Moral Dissonance 19

123

not necessarily caused by outrageously immoral acts, such

as the gross managerial immorality which usually involves

some kind of corruption, as at Enron or Worldcom. Indeed,

the occasional misjudgement or a contestable decision

would be sufficient to cause some moral dissonance.

However, it is in the former cases of corruption that we

should expect to find particularly high levels of moral

dissonance among those responsible, assuming the absence

of sociopathic traits.

Using a metaphor which they call ‘‘The Pyramid of

Choice’’ Tavris and Aronson (2008, p. 32) demonstrate

how two psychologically and ethically similar people take

two different moral pathways, although they both start

from the same point. They use an example involving

students deciding whether to cheat, or not, during an

exam. I shall use a business-related example, such as two

managers in the same organization who both have to

decide whether to accept ‘‘hospitality’’ from a corporation

which is hoping to supply various components. For both

managers, it is a difficult decision, but manager A decides

to accept the weekend in Paris, while manager B declines.

Remember that in both cases it is a close run thing.

However once the deeds have been done, we are likely to

see two people with distinctly differing views. According

to Tavris and Aronson (2008), self justification of their

actions by both individuals creates a moral gap between

the two, which becomes wider and wider. Manager A

declares that the weekend in Paris would in no way affect

her/his judgement when allocating contracts, and that,

anyway, everyone participates in corporate hospitality; it

was nothing more than that. Manager B says that this type

of activity is nothing less than bribery, which is both

illegal and immoral, and if she/he were the CEO, the

company would stamp down on it hard. There is an

obvious and distinct polarization of attitudes. ‘‘It is as if

they had started off at the top of a pyramid, a millimeter

apart; but by the time they have finished justifying their

individual actions, they have slid to the bottom and now

stand at opposite corners of its base’’ (Tavris and Aronson

2008, p. 33). As manager A takes each step on the

pathway to complete self justification, so it becomes

easier, if not a necessity, to perpetrate even more ques-

tionable acts, as she/he becomes the victim of entrapment

in which more and more of manager A’s effort, time and

credibility is invested in risky behaviour.

Having said all that, it is patently obvious that not all

managers perceive themselves as sliding down that dan-

gerous slope towards complete moral degradation. Nor do

all managers suffer sleepless nights of guilt and self-doubt.

This is because all individuals have a number of strategies

for moderating the negative effects of dissonance, strate-

gies, some of which become enmeshed with the self jus-

tification process.

Normalising and Routinising Morally Dissonant

Behaviour

Moral dissonance at any level can lead to some puzzling

and counterintuitive behaviour, including, in some cases,

an escalation of immoral behaviour, as mentioned. If a

manager is already experiencing some dissonance because

of the problems involved in making difficult or contestable

decisions, then it is very possible that in order to reduce it,

she/he may increase the controversial decisions, or create

controversy where none existed. What the manager is

doing here is attempting to reduce in her/his own mind the

importance of the decisions and their impact by normal-

ising these decisions and implying that they are not so

important after all. ‘‘What’s the fuss?’’ she is saying,

‘‘these are everyday events. No problems!’’ The scaling up

of obviously dissonant behaviour, by decreasing the per-

ceived importance, makes that behaviour consonant with

‘‘normal’’ behaviour or attitudes.

Also according the Tsang (2002, p.29) ‘‘Circumstances

that are task oriented and routine can … obscure the rele- vance of moral principles.’’ Tsang then goes on to explain

that the outcome of the routinising of tasks is that the

perpetrator of an immoral act focuses not on the reper-

cussions of that act, but on the minutiae of the process. She

gives the extreme example of Adolf Eichmann’s contri-

bution to the ‘‘final solution’’ (note the depersonalised

euphemism) and his denial of any responsibility. Eich-

mann, apparently, when questioned, failed to remember

significant events, such as his arranging the evacuation of

Jews from Bratislava, almost as if it was just another day’s

work in a routine job.

Quite obviously there is a huge difference in behaviours

between a person who is involved in genocide on a day-to-

day basis and even the most corrupt of managers. But, even

so, it is a matter of scale. The senior executives at Enron

both normalised and routinised outrageously corrupt prac-

tices as part of the corporate culture within the upper

reaches of the corporation (Cruver 2003). If you can do

that, the immoral behaviour, in your version, has no victim.

In fact, it is a ‘‘victimless crime.’’

Blaming and Dehumanising Victims of Dissonant

Behaviour

In a survey, using a realistic case study, Konovsky and

Jaster (1989) found that business people faced with a

potential predicament, i.e. a situation which might endan-

ger their reputation for acting with integrity, overwhelm-

ingly used excuses and justifications, in which they sought

to ‘‘minimize perceived responsibility for their behaviour’’

(p. 395). This conduct was analysed by the research-

ers in the context of Goffman’s theory of impression

20 J. Lowell

123

management, in which the victim of an unreasonable act is

blamed, as the guilty party attempts to maintain her/his

good reputation in the eyes of others. But impression

management and this form of self justification is equally

relevant in the analysis of moral dissonance. Remember

particularly in the scenario of the money found in the

street, how, in order to reduce the finder’s dissonance, the

person who lost the money was deemed responsible,

blamed and labelled as ‘‘careless’’ or even a ‘‘criminal.’’

Thus, saving one’s face and reducing moral dissonance can

both be achieved at the same time, providing a link

between positive self perception and moral consonance.

Self justification by blaming the victim is a mechanism

well known to social psychologists, and particularly dis-

sonance theorists. Many people who perpetrate atrocities, if

they did not use this mechanism would, according to Tavris

and Aronson (2008, p. 198) ‘‘pay a large psychological

price in guilt, anguish, anxiety, nightmares and sleepless

nights.’’ What is frightening about this type of self justifi-

cation, is that it encourages the perpetrators to scale up the

level of cruelty, because they persuade themselves that

without doubt the victims deserve punishment, and the

‘‘greater the pain [they] inflict on others, the greater the

need to justify it to maintain [their] feelings of decency and

self worth’’ (p. 198).

And blaming the victim, particularly in an organiza-

tional setting, may not just be the case of individuals’

attitudes. It can be institutionalised. In the UK, since the

beginning of the industrial revolution until the 1970s, it

was assumed that accidents in the workplace, almost

without exception, were caused by workers failing to pay

enough attention to what they were doing. Belief in the so

called ‘‘careless worker model’’ was shared by manage-

ments and trade unions alike and the way to prevent

accidents was by exhorting workers to take more care,

and not by improving safety measures in the workplace

(Bratton and Gold 2003). In this way, managers and trade

union officials slept far more soundly with reduced levels

of moral dissonance when accidents occurred as they

inevitably did.

Denying the humanity of the victims of dissonant

behaviour is but a few steps on from blaming the victim.

Once again, at an extreme level, the holocaust is an

obvious example of this dehumanization. However, we do

not need to go as far as genocide to identify this phe-

nomenon in action. For managers who have to make very

difficult decisions which detrimentally affect the lives or

other people, the dissonance that this produces is sub-

stantially reduced if those other people are not perceived

as people at all. For instance, in the UK National Health

Service critics complain that patients are treated, not as

individuals but as numbers (Persaud 2007). Also, there is

no doubt the managers of the finance institutions which

recently failed through questionable financial practices

do not spend much time considering the plight of indi-

viduals ruined by their behaviour, even though they are

undoubtedly aware of the numbers of people involved. So,

although these numbers are staggeringly high, the impact

is undoubtedly softened if the human or personal element

is ignored.

Self Esteem and Self Affirmation as Dissonance

Moderators

When researching dissonance it is very easy to fall into the

trap and believe that it affects everybody in generally the

same way, and this was a common assumption originally.

However, this is not true. Researchers started in the mid

1980s to look at the relationship between the self system

(i.e. self esteem, self perception, self image, degree of self

affirmation etc.) and levels of dissonance (see Steele and

Liu 1983; Holland et al. 2002; Cooper 2007). They were

particularly interested to find out whether people with high

self esteem might escape the worst effects of dissonance,

leading to a limited use of self justification strategies. Not

only that, but, from Aronson’s quote below, it may also be

the case that people with particularly low levels of self

esteem are affected less acutely.

‘‘I would speculate that the types of people who respond

to dissonance with honest introspection would have high

well-grounded self esteem, or they might have really low

self esteem, so they have nothing to lose by saying, ‘Geez,

I guess everything I invested in really doesn’t make much

sense; I’m really a jerk.’’’ (Elliott Aronson, quoted by

Slater 2005, p. 124).

Self affirmation is the term that is used to describe how

individuals are motivated to perceive themselves as good

people: generally honest and moral (Cooper 2007). When

the self is attacked, either by one’s own foolish actions,

(e.g. keeping the money found in the street), or by another

persons accusations, the instinctive reaction is to seek

immediate reaffirmation of one’s self worth. What is

notable, here, is that the reaffirmation action may be

totally divorced from the self threatening action or accu-

sation. So, having been accused of laziness at work, or

having unjustifiably lost one’s temper, one may seek to

bolster one’s self esteem by putting money in a charity

box.

It should now be clear that both self affirmation and self

justification are used to relieve dissonance. The act of

keeping the found money in the earlier scenario may be

perceived as a self threat and may also be a source of moral

dissonance. However, the method of decreasing the moral

dissonance was by external justification (i.e. criticising the

owner of the money), but if the affirmation theorists are

correct, reaffirmation, even by an unrelated action (e.g.

Managers and Moral Dissonance 21

123

helping a disabled person to cross the road) would also

have been effective.

Thibodeau and Aronson (1992) go slightly further, with

their self consistency theory, by arguing that dissonance

(and I would argue especially moral dissonance) is caused

by threats to the self system, such as accusations of

(or actual) stupid, harmful or immoral behaviour. Thus, the

dissonance is aroused, because the normally positive self

concept, and the expectations which it produces, are

damaged and are now out of balance with the standard self.

But what does all this tell us particularly about disso-

nance and managers? Well, apart from the fact that self

affirmation may help reduce dissonance, especially moral

dissonance, it may also be true that managers, assuming

that they generally possess higher levels of self esteem,

should be liable to less dissonance. There has been some

recent research on the relationship between power, control

and self esteem (Wojciske and Struzynska-Kujalowicz

2007; Fast et al. 2009) and, although this is not the place to

explore that research in depth, it can be said that in general

terms there is a positive relationship between power and

self esteem, even though some of the assumed ability of

managers to control situations may be illusory.

Indeed, self esteem has long been considered a disso-

nance moderator, as indicated earlier, but research com-

pleted in Europe by Holland et al. (2002) helped confirm

this empirically. The researchers created both moral and

hedonistic dissonance in a group of car drivers by ‘‘con-

fronting [them] with the negative consequences of car

driving either for others, that is, moral dissonance (e.g.

environment, public health), or for themselves, that is

hedonistic dissonance (e.g. travel time).’’ It was found, as

expected, that the respondents with low self esteem utilised

more external self justification strategies to lessen moral

dissonance, and more internal self justification strategies to

reduce hedonistic dissonance. The research, also predict-

ably, found that high self esteem respondents ‘‘are less

likely to engage in self justification because they experi-

ence less discomfort after a self-threat’’ (Holland et al.

2002, p. 1713). This suggests, I believe, that the high

esteem respondents are experiencing constant self affir-

mation and it is this constant re-affirmation of the self

system which allows them to experience potentially dis-

sonance arousing situations, either moral or hedonistic,

with little discomfort and less need for self justification,

either external or internal.

Why Dissonance may Entrap Managers in a Downward

Spiral

In the concept of cognitive dissonance Leon Festinger

uncovered an idea, now honed over many years by an army

of researchers, which appears to explain the effect of

immoral behaviour on all but the most sociopathic of

people. I think it is fair to say that the ‘‘all’’ here includes

most managers. As Darley (1996), Cialdini (1996), Bakan

(2004) and others have argued for some time, all managers

are vulnerable to situations created by the very nature of

corporations, and it these situational factors, allied with

psychological forces, which leave them vulnerable to high

levels of moral dissonance. However, managers have also

used moderating strategies (e.g. blaming the victim, self

affirmation, etc.) without which they would not be able to

function. Tsang (2002) labels these strategies collectively

as ‘‘moral rationalization’’ which allows ‘‘people to con-

vince themselves that their preferred unethical choice is

consistent with moral standards’’ (p. 34). Let’s be clear

here: moral rationalization is employed at some time by

everybody, but if Darley, Bakan, and Tsang (see above) are

right then what we have in corporations is institutionalised

self justification and an extreme form of relativism, in

which immoral and often very harmful behaviours are in-

ternalised and reframed as moral and positive actions. This

not an optimistic scenario and a simplified diagram of the

dynamics of this cycle is illustrated in Fig. 1.

In this figure, the reiterative cycle commences with

immoral behaviour at the top, which is internalised by

various processes of justification, self affirmation, etc. This

in turn triggers further and more extreme immoral behav-

iour, which we call amplification, as the manager is

entrapped in the ‘‘deadly embrace’’ of this cycle, and

subconsciously adopts a consistent mode of immoral

behaviour which, a short while before, would have prob-

ably been condemned without reservation.

IMMORAL BEHAVIOUR

MORAL DISSONANCE

JUSTIFICATION, SELF AFFIRMATION,

RATIONALIZATION ETC.

INTERNALIZATION

AMPLIFICATION

Fig. 1 Positive amplifying feedback loop of immoral behaviour

22 J. Lowell

123

Why some of the Bases of Dissonance are now Being

Questioned

Some readers may well be wondering about the undoubted

elements of psychological determinism in this process.

They may be asking ‘‘is it inevitable that everyone in this

position will end up justifying the unjustifiable, with their

bad behaviour spiralling out of control?’’ Well, the good

news for doubters is that researchers and writers in psy-

chotherapy (Tompkins and Lawley 2009), in neurology

(Ramachandran 1999) and even in economics (Chen 2008)

have been chipping away at some of the established

foundations of dissonance theory.

According to Tompkins and Lawley (2009) here is now

evidence that dissonance can be neutralised, not solely by

methods which kick start a positive amplifying feedback

loop leading to amplification, but also by using the tension

caused by the dissonant acts or beliefs as a springboard for

innovation and change. In this model the person is not

necessarily entrapped in a cycle of misbehaviour. There is,

write these psychotherapists (p. 2) ‘‘always a conflict

between a person’s ‘misleading representation’ and ‘what

you know to be true.’’’ but their research shows how this

person can ‘‘migrate from self-DDDing [self-delusion, self-

deception and self-denial] to acting from what they know

to be true… [This] shows a desire to change as an essential element.’’ In short, they are suggesting that the need to

reduce dissonance, in which one’s need to fill ‘‘the gap

between a desired outcome and the current situation’’ (p. 3)

can produce that downwards spiral immoral behaviour, but

can just as easily also produce a creative tension leading to

innovation. This view accords with the needs theories of

motivation framed by Maslow, Herzberg and McClelland

and much loved by students of management. However, we

await the empirical evidence of Tompkins and Lawley’s

findings.

World famous neurologist Ramachandran (1999) looks

at how the brain and its architecture deal with irrational or

contradictory cognitions which do not fit into our estab-

lished framework of beliefs. He suggests that the left

hemisphere of the brain constantly files new cognitions

‘‘seamlessly into our preexisting world view’’ (p. 134).

Unfortunately not all cognitions fit snugly into our world

view and we have to come up with some way of coping

with these dissonant cognitions, and urgently! Ramachan-

dran (p. 134/135) writes:

What your left hemisphere does … is either ignore the anomaly completely or distort it to squeeze it into

your preexisting framework, to preserve stability.

And this, I suggest, is the essential rationale behind

all the so called Freudian defenses – the denials,

repressions, confabulations and other forms of self-

delusions that govern our daily lives. Far from being

maladaptive, such every day defence mechanisms

prevent the brain from being hounded into direc-

tionless indecision by the ‘‘combinatorial explosion’’

of possible stories that might be written from the

material available to the senses. The penalty, of

course, is that you are lying to yourself, but it’s a

small price to pay for the coherence and stability

conferred on the system as a whole.

So far, so good: this explanation appears to support the

established ideas of dissonance, but this time from a neu-

rological (and Freudian) perspective. However, Rama-

chandran further argues that in situations when the

cognitions are completely and utterly out of line with the

established framework of beliefs there has to be a total

reappraisal of the worldview. ‘‘The right hemisphere thus

forces a ‘‘Kuhnian paradigm shift’’ in response to the

anomalies …’’(p. 136). This, then, is not the entrapment of an amplifying feedback loop of dissonant and immoral

behaviour, but a system characterised by a battle between

the brain hemispheres which, when the right hemisphere

triumphs, leads to a radical revision of attitudes and

behaviour.

Yale economist M. Keith Chen has been looking criti-

cally at the notion of rationalization of free choice which

underpins much of the established dissonance theory (Chen

2008; Tierney 2008, 2010). Over the last 50 years there

have been a number of studies (see Aronson 2004; Cooper

2007; Tavris and Aronson 2008, etc.) which have indicated

that once we make a choice (e.g. between two different

colour cars, between two different styles of shoes, or

between an immoral or moral act) of our own free will (the

so-called ‘‘free choice paradigm’’ or FCP) then that choice

is subsequently upgraded in our evaluation, and the rejec-

ted option is devalued. In this article, I have already given

the examples of finding money and accepting ‘‘hospitality’’

during a business deal, and in both these cases FCP would

predict that, once chosen, the options of keeping the money

and of taking the ‘‘hospitality’’ would subsequently be

rationalised as the correct actions, while the alternatives

would now be considered even less attractive. This polar-

ization of attitudes towards the options after the choice is

made is called ‘‘the spreading of preferences.’’ Although

there has already been some evidence that in limited situ-

ations self justification through rationalization is some-

times replaced by attitude changes, Chen has set out to

undermine systematically the methodology of ‘‘these

studies (and the free-choice methodology they employ)

[which] implicitly assume that before choices are made, a

subject’s preferences can be measured perfectly, i.e. with

infinite precision, and under-appreciate that a subject’s

choices reflect their preferences’’ (Chen 2008 p. 1). In

Managers and Moral Dissonance 23

123

effect, what Chen is arguing, and tries to prove mathe-

matically, is that in many cases there is no free choice

because the subject already has a preference, and, however,

small or apparently insignificant that bias towards that one

option is, it would nullify the idea that we upgrade or

downgrade choices made from two (or more) equally

attractive options. Therefore, it is not necessarily the

choosing in that situation which creates the spreading of

preferences (if it occurs at all), but a preconceived bias.

Of course, this does not negate all those many studies

that seemed to confirm the FCP and preference spreading,

because there must be many situations in which there is no

prejudgment, and the FCP holds up. But it does suggest

that in some studies the FCP did not exist. Thus, if Chen is

correct, in some studies there was also no dissonance and

no self justification through rationalization, because the

choice fell in line with a preconceived notion. Conse-

quently, if I choose to keep the money I found in the street,

there may be little, if any (moral) dissonance and less need

for self justification, because I may have been leaning

towards that course of action anyway to such a degree,

even subconsciously, that I have no need to spread the

preferences by upgrading my choice of action and down-

grading the rejected option. And the same process may

occur when I decide to accept, or reject, the ‘‘hospitality’’

from my supplier. So, in common sense and general terms,

if I have a predisposition to act immorally, there could well

be very little, if any, cognitive dissonance and no need for

self justification. In my view, by throwing doubt on the

FCP experiments, Chen has merely confirmed what should

have been obvious anyway.

Conclusion

It is quite strange that the concepts which have been

standard fare in social psychology conferences have hardly

caused a ripple in the world of business ethics (particularly

in Europe), since social psychologists delve into the murky

world of crime, evil, immorality and all other types of anti-

social behaviour. Not only do social psychologists analyse

why people misbehave, particularly in group situations and

social settings, coming up with concepts such as deindi-

viduation and diffusion of responsibility, but they also

attempt to understand the effect of such behaviour on the

actual miscreants.

All in all, there is no doubt that dissonance, in many

forms, is a phenomenon widely experienced by humans, in

all cultures. The studies above (Chen 2008; Ramachandran

1999; Tompkins and Lawley 2009) have to some degree

caused us to look again at the bases of dissonance in all its

forms, but have not disproved dissonance theory and its

paradigms. In addition, they have forced us to review how

dissonance affects diverse individuals in different situa-

tions. It should now be said that what was considered to be

a general theory of social psychology is less general than

previously assumed.

For organizations and managers, the problem of moral

dissonance in decision making remains. Remember the

‘‘Pyramid of Choice’’ (Tavris and Aronson 2008) above,

where the manager has to choose between two courses of

action; one perhaps marginally unethical and one wholly

ethical. Once the decision has been made dissonance theory

suggests that the process of rationalization and self justi-

fication will ‘‘spread’’ the two preferences. And even if

Chen (2008, p. 1) is correct and ‘‘mere choice may not be

enough to induce rationalization,’’ and that the act of

choosing may not in itself create an attitudinal polarization

of the options, once the action has been taken the psy-

chological pressure to rationalize and justify is still there in

many cases. How the manager firstly decides her/his

preference and how she/he then responds to the possible

moral dissonance is, even more than we previously

assumed, dependent on personality and situational factors.

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