Environmental Influences on Ethical Decision Making: Climate and Environmental Predictors of Research Integrity

It is commonly held that early career experiences influence ethical behavior. One way early career experiences might operate is to influence the decisions people make when presented with problems that raise ethical concerns. To test this proposition, 102 first-year doctoral students were asked to complete a series of measures examining ethical decision making along with a series of measures examining environmental experiences and climate perceptions. Factoring of the environmental measure yielded five dimensions: professional leadership, poor coping, lack of rewards, limited competitive pressure, and poor career direction. Factoring of the climate inventory yielded four dimensions: equity, interpersonal conflict, occupational engagement, and work commitment. When these dimensions were used to predict performance on the ethical decision-making task, it was found that the environmental dimensions were better predictors than the climate dimensions. The implications of these findings for research on ethical conduct are discussed.     

Are Past Normative Behaviors Predictive of Future Behavioral Intentions?

We acknowledge the limitations in measures of moral reasoning and pursue an alternative technique by investigating past behaviors as they relate to present behavioral intentions. Our purpose is to evaluate the merits of patterned normative behavior for predicting present and future, morally relevant outcomes. Participants (N = 177) completed a policy capturing experimental design responding to questions that orthogonally varied the situational nature of the decision context. Results indicate that past normative behaviors are significantly and directly related to ethical behavioral intentions. Moreover, they moderate the relationships between situational factors and intended outcomes as well as moral reasoning and intended outcomes.     

Structuring Case-Based Ethics Training: How Comparing Cases and Structured Prompts Influence Training Effectiveness

This study examined how structuring case-based ethics training, either through (a) case presentation or (b) prompt questions, influences training outcomes. Results revealed an interaction between case presentation and prompt questions such that some form of structure improved effectiveness. Specifically, comparing cases led to greater sensemaking strategy use and decision-ethicality when trainees considered unstructured rather than structured prompts. When cases were presented sequentially, structuring prompts improved training effectiveness. Too much structure, however, decreased future ethical decision making, suggesting that there can be too much of a good thing when structuring case-based ethics education. Implications for designing ethics training programs are discussed.     

The Effects of Note-Taking and Review on Sensemaking and Ethical Decision Making

The effectiveness of case-based learning in ethics education varies widely regarding how cases are presented. Case process instruction may impact case-based ethics education to promote sensemaking processes, ethical sensemaking strategy use, and ethical decision making (EDM) quality. This study examined two teaching techniques, notes and review, and participants completed note-taking and review activities examining a case-based scenario during an ethics education course. Results suggest that providing case notes in outline form improves sensemaking processes, strategy use, and EDM quality. In addition, combining processes of provided notes and passive review results in incremental, additive performance via certain ethical sensemaking strategies and EDM quality.     

The Influence of Temporal Orientation and Affective Frame on Use of Ethical Decision-Making Strategies

This study examined the role of temporal orientation and affective frame in the execution of ethical decision-making strategies. In reflecting on a past experience or imagining a future experience, participants thought about experiences that they considered either positive or negative. The participants recorded their thinking about that experience by responding to several questions, and their responses were content-analyzed for the use of ethical decision-making strategies. The findings indicated that a future temporal orientation was associated with greater strategy use. Likewise, a positive affective frame was associated with greater strategy use. Future orientation may permit better strategy execution than a past orientation because it facilitates more objective, balanced contemplation of the reflected-upon situation and minimizes potential self-threat associated with past behavior. A positive affective frame likely improves strategy execution because it facilitates active analysis of the experience. Future directions and implications of these findings are discussed.     

Between an Example and a Precept,Which Has Greater Importance? A Comparison of the Channels of Socialization in Military Ethics

In this study, I examined what channels of socialization influence the moral behavior of cadets. We conducted a regression analysis of the effects of parents' attitudes to moral education, the standard and potential curriculum of schools, peer groups, and communication media on individual ethics and discipline using 399 sample participants. The participants were recruited through a questionnaire survey on cadets from academy of military, naval, and air force, and four-year based students from R.O.C. National Defense University. The analysis results showed that the cultivation of morality among cadets was directly influenced by the school's potential curriculum (i.e., intern cadres and officers in company) and their parents' attitudes to moral education during early childhood. The results also indicated that the influence of teaching by example was more significant than that of teaching by precept.     

Music is What Feelings Sound Like: The Role of Tonal and Atonal Music in Unethical Behavior

Governments and societies often have condemned music as being “indecent” and encouraging people to act unethically. Despite these accusations, research did not previously address the link between music and unethical acts. Here we argue that music may signal what is appropriate or inappropriate, hence moral behavior. We focus on the distinction between tonal and atonal music to examine the relation of music with unethical behavior. Results from an experimental study showed that harmonic or tonal music encouraged unethical behavior in adolescents and this was mediated by negative affect. Our findings suggest that music plays an integral role in driving (im)moral behavior.     

Role of Researchers in the Ethical Conduct of Research: A Discourse Analysis From Different Stakeholder Perspectives

The ethical conduct of research rests largely on researchers, and as such, an understanding of how they perceive and enact their role in research is paramount. However, the literature around ethics and research mostly focuses on researchers’ perception of Research Ethics Boards (REB; also known as Institutional Review Boards) roles and functions. To fill that gap, we analyzed the perceptions of researchers, REB members, and influential parties (n = 40) about researchers’ role in the ethical conduct of research through discourse analysis. Three discourses emerged: researchers as reflective practitioners, protectors of participants, and technicians. Understanding the commonalities and differences among the discourses may foster a shared and compelling institutional research culture.     

Can the memory enhancement of the survival judgment task be explained by the elaboration hypothesis?: Evidence from a memory load paradigm1

Many reports have described a survival judgment task that requires participants to judge words according to their relevance to a survival situation, eliciting better recall than that obtained in other judgment tasks (e.g., semantic or self‐judgment tasks). Two explanatory hypotheses (the adaptive hypothesis and the elaboration hypothesis) have been proposed. Here we used the memory load paradigm to investigate whether the adaptive hypothesis or the combination hypothesis can better account for the memory enhancement of the survival judgment task. We used a survival judgment task and an autobiographical recall task with the condition of no memory load or memory load. The 48 participants performed four encoding conditions (memory load—survival, no memory load—survival, memory load—autobiographical, and no memory load—autobiographical). The results showed that memory enhancement of the survival judgment task occurred only in the no memory load condition, but not in the memory load condition. Our results support the elaboration hypothesis. We also discuss the validity of the elaboration hypothesis and future directions to be pursued in this research field.     

The Name-Pronunciation Effect: Further Evidence from Chinese

This study examined the Chinese name-pronunciation effect. The easy-to-pronounce and difficult-to-pronounce Chinese names were created using the same characters in order to control for visual perceptual and conceptual fluency. In Experiment 1, participants rated each name in terms of liking, electability as a state leader, income level, and baby name preference. An additional rating of prevalence was used to estimate familiarity. In Experiment 2, participants did not read the name aloud before rating and performed intentional recall and recognition tests. In both experiments, the easy-to-pronounce names were rated higher than difficult-to-pronounce names on liking. This effect generalized to judgments of electability and baby name preference but not to prevalence and income level. There were no differences in memory performances between the two types of names. Results are discussed in terms of the boundary condition of the name-pronunciation effect and the advantage of using Chinese names to study this effect.