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Yes, but these do not represent average human. Fortune 500 represent people more likely to break ethics rules then average human who also work in conditions tha

by watwut 9mo ago

Yes, but these do not represent average human. Fortune 500 represent people more likely to break ethics rules then average human who also work in conditions that reward lack of ethics.

pwatsonwailes 9mo ago
Not quite. The idea that corporate employees are fundamentally "not average" and therefore more prone to unethical behaviour than the general population relies on a dispositional explanation (it's about the person's character). However, the vast majority of psychological research over the last 80 years heavily favours a situational explanation (it's about the environment/system). Everyone (in the field) got really interested in this after WW2 basically, trying to understand how the heck did Nazi Germany happen. TL;DR: research dismantled this idea decades ago. The Milgram and Stanford Prison experiments are the most obvious examples. If you're not familiar: Milgram showed that 65% of ordinary volunteers were willing to administer potentially lethal electric shocks to a stranger because an authority figure in a lab coat told them to. In the Stanford Prison experiement, Zimbardo took healthy, average college students and assigned them roles as guards and prisoners. Within days, the roles and systems set in place overrode individual personality. The other relevant bit would be Asch’s conformity experiments; to whit, that people will deny the evidence of their own eyes (e.g., the length of a line) to fit in with a group. In a corporate setting, if the group norm is to prioritise KPIs over ethics, the average human will conform to that norm to avoid social friction or losing their job, or other realistic perceived fears. Bazerman and Tenbrunsel's research is relevant too. Broadly, people like to think that we are rational moral agents, but it's more accurate to say that we boundedly ethical. There's this idea of ethical fading that happens. Basically, when you introduce a goal, people's ability to frame falls apart, including with a view to the ethical implications. This is also related to why people under pressure default to less creative approaches to problem solving. Our brains tunnel vision on the goal, to the failure of everything else. Regarding how all that relates to modern politics, I'll leave that up to your imagination.
- RobotToaster 9mo ago
  My favourite part about the Milgram experiments is that he originally wanted to prove that obedience was a German trait, and that freedom loving Americans wouldn't obey, which he completely disproved. The results annoyed him so much that he repeated it dozens of times, getting roughly the same result.
- jacques_morin 9mo ago
  The Stanford prison experiment has been debunked many times : https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31380664/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31380664/ - guards received instructions to be cruel from experimenters - guards were not told they were subjects while prisoners were - participants were not immersed in the simulation - experimenters lied about reports from subjects. Basically it is bad science and we can't conclude anything from it. I wouldn't rule out the possibility that top fortune-500 management have personality traits that make them more likely to engage in unethical behaviour, if only by selection through promotion by crushing others.
  - pwatsonwailes 9mo ago
    It's instructive though, despite the flaws, and at this point has been replicated enough in different ways that we know it's got some basis in reality. There's a whole bunch of constructivist research around interactionism, that shows that whilst it's not just the person's default ways of behaving or just the situation that matters, the situational context definitely influences what people are likely to do in any given scenario. Reicher & Haslam's research around engaged followership gives a pretty good insight into why Zimbardo got the results he did, because he wasn't just observing what went on. That gets into all sorts of things around good study design, constructivist vs positivist analysis etc, but that's a whole different thing. I suspect, particularly with regards to different levels, there's an element of selection bias going on (if for no other reason that what we see in terms of levels of psychopathy in higher levels of management), but I'd guess (and it's a guess), that culture convincing people that achieving the KPI is the moral good is more of a factor. That gets into a whole separate thing around what happens in more cultlike corporations and the dynamics with the VC world (WeWork is an obvious example) as to why organisations can end up with workforces which will do things of questionable purpose, because the organisation has a visible a fearless leader who has to be pleased/obeyed etc (Musk, Jobs etc), or more insidiously, a valuable goal that must be pursued regardless of cost (weaponised effective altruism sort of). That then gets into a whole thing about what happens with something like the UK civil service, where you're asked to implement things and obviously you can't care about the politics, because you'll serve lots of governments that believe lots of different things, and you can't just quit and get rehired every time a party you disagree with personally gets into power, but again, that diverges into other things. At the risk of narrative fallacy - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKDdLWAdcbM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKDdLWAdcbM
Nasrudith 9mo ago
That sounds like classic sour grapes to me. "The reason I'm not successful is because I'm ethical!". Instead of you know, business being a hard field.

by watwut 9mo ago

Yes, but these do not represent average human. Fortune 500 represent people more likely to break ethics rules then average human who also work in conditions that reward lack of ethics.

pwatsonwailes 9mo ago

Not quite. The idea that corporate employees are fundamentally "not average" and therefore more prone to unethical behaviour than the general population relies on a dispositional explanation (it's about the person's character). However, the vast majority of psychological research over the last 80 years heavily favours a situational explanation (it's about the environment/system). Everyone (in the field) got really interested in this after WW2 basically, trying to understand how the heck did Nazi Germany happen. TL;DR: research dismantled this idea decades ago. The Milgram and Stanford Prison experiments are the most obvious examples. If you're not familiar: Milgram showed that 65% of ordinary volunteers were willing to administer potentially lethal electric shocks to a stranger because an authority figure in a lab coat told them to. In the Stanford Prison experiement, Zimbardo took healthy, average college students and assigned them roles as guards and prisoners. Within days, the roles and systems set in place overrode individual personality. The other relevant bit would be Asch’s conformity experiments; to whit, that people will deny the evidence of their own eyes (e.g., the length of a line) to fit in with a group. In a corporate setting, if the group norm is to prioritise KPIs over ethics, the average human will conform to that norm to avoid social friction or losing their job, or other realistic perceived fears. Bazerman and Tenbrunsel's research is relevant too. Broadly, people like to think that we are rational moral agents, but it's more accurate to say that we boundedly ethical. There's this idea of ethical fading that happens. Basically, when you introduce a goal, people's ability to frame falls apart, including with a view to the ethical implications. This is also related to why people under pressure default to less creative approaches to problem solving. Our brains tunnel vision on the goal, to the failure of everything else. Regarding how all that relates to modern politics, I'll leave that up to your imagination.

RobotToaster 9mo ago
My favourite part about the Milgram experiments is that he originally wanted to prove that obedience was a German trait, and that freedom loving Americans wouldn't obey, which he completely disproved. The results annoyed him so much that he repeated it dozens of times, getting roughly the same result.
jacques_morin 9mo ago
The Stanford prison experiment has been debunked many times : https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31380664/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31380664/ - guards received instructions to be cruel from experimenters - guards were not told they were subjects while prisoners were - participants were not immersed in the simulation - experimenters lied about reports from subjects. Basically it is bad science and we can't conclude anything from it. I wouldn't rule out the possibility that top fortune-500 management have personality traits that make them more likely to engage in unethical behaviour, if only by selection through promotion by crushing others.
- pwatsonwailes 9mo ago
  It's instructive though, despite the flaws, and at this point has been replicated enough in different ways that we know it's got some basis in reality. There's a whole bunch of constructivist research around interactionism, that shows that whilst it's not just the person's default ways of behaving or just the situation that matters, the situational context definitely influences what people are likely to do in any given scenario. Reicher & Haslam's research around engaged followership gives a pretty good insight into why Zimbardo got the results he did, because he wasn't just observing what went on. That gets into all sorts of things around good study design, constructivist vs positivist analysis etc, but that's a whole different thing. I suspect, particularly with regards to different levels, there's an element of selection bias going on (if for no other reason that what we see in terms of levels of psychopathy in higher levels of management), but I'd guess (and it's a guess), that culture convincing people that achieving the KPI is the moral good is more of a factor. That gets into a whole separate thing around what happens in more cultlike corporations and the dynamics with the VC world (WeWork is an obvious example) as to why organisations can end up with workforces which will do things of questionable purpose, because the organisation has a visible a fearless leader who has to be pleased/obeyed etc (Musk, Jobs etc), or more insidiously, a valuable goal that must be pursued regardless of cost (weaponised effective altruism sort of). That then gets into a whole thing about what happens with something like the UK civil service, where you're asked to implement things and obviously you can't care about the politics, because you'll serve lots of governments that believe lots of different things, and you can't just quit and get rehired every time a party you disagree with personally gets into power, but again, that diverges into other things. At the risk of narrative fallacy - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKDdLWAdcbM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKDdLWAdcbM

Nasrudith 9mo ago

That sounds like classic sour grapes to me. "The reason I'm not successful is because I'm ethical!". Instead of you know, business being a hard field.