Author: Jordan Lee Watts

Publisher:

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 60

ISBN-13:

Evidence shows that identifying potential consequences as a part of ethical dilemma assessment leads to improved forecasting and greater decision ethicality when one is deciding which actions to pursue. The present experiments attempt to expand upon past research and examine the potential impact deliberate identification of consequences has on the assessment of another individual's unethical response to a dilemma. The usefulness of this strategy as a training tool is assessed. Finally, the experiments examine how deliberate consequence identification may interact with previously reported effects of cognitive load. In Study 1, the deliberate identification of consequences was found to result in significant differences on ethical dilemma assessment. Those who were asked to identify consequences that could occur from unethical actions predicted significantly more harm as a result of those actions compared to controls. Additionally, these participants reported that the unethical actions were wrong and indicated an unwillingness to take the same actions with significantly more conviction compared to controls. Study 2 attempted to examine whether or not participants who successfully used the consequence identification procedure previously would display persistent positive effects on future dilemma assessment when they were not required to deliberately identify consequences. In the initial training session, participants were asked to identify either four or eight consequences on two scenarios. Significant differences were observed compared to controls on measures of ethical judgment and ethical intentions. Those asked to identify consequences displayed stronger conviction that unethical actions were wrong and reported less willingness to take the same actions. No significant differences were observed between those who underwent consequence identification training and those who did not on measures of harm prediction, ethical judgments, or ethical intentions when assessing dilemma scenarios immediately after practice or one week later. Study 3 attempted to further expand these findings by combining consequence identification with previous research on cognitive load. Significant differences were observed between those asked to identify consequences and controls on measures of predicted harm, ethical judgments, and ethical intentions. However, no significant differences were observed as a result of the cognitive load manipulation. Implications of these findings and future directions are discussed.