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What Situations Influence Our Choices? - Coggle Diagram
What Situations Influence Our Choices?
Situational forces can often lead ordinary people to act against their own judgement or values, often without fully registering that a moral line was crossed. The readings note a deeper structural pattern, where organizations can publicly commit to values while their decisions decouple from those commitments. This becomes even more common in a time where success is judged by outcomes rather than the integrity of the process itself.
Incrementalism: gradual changes cloud wrongdoing
Bazerman: Study found that participants were twice as likely to approve inflated financial estimates that increased gradually vs. appearing all at once despite both situations leading to the same end result.
Milgram: Although the main takeaway from this experiment had to do with authority, there is something to be said about the incremental increase of voltage, where the shocks increased in 15V increments.
Potential follow-up experiment: would the participants have shocked the participants if they were told it was one massive shock (450V) each time? This would answer to what extent authority truly impacts people and help us understand where the line gets drawn.
Jonas: Describes technological effects as inherently cumulative; they "add themselves to one another" until the situation becomes unrecognizable from where it started.
This adds more of a civilizational lens to incrementalism rather than an individualistic one, which the Milgram and Bazerman experiments focus on.
Impact of external factors (either authority or social pressure) on overriding individual judgment
Asch: Participants gave answers that they were relatively sure was wrong simply to match the group's incorrect consensus so that they would not stir controversy.
Shows how social conformity pressure can override individual perception.
Milgram: Demonstrated the impact an authority figure had on individuals, where people were willing to go to the extent of hurting others despite audible pain responses.
Bazerman: In the case study of the Ford Pinto, the authors frame the workers as not consciously corrupt individuals, but as people whose judgment was shaped by organizational and cognitive pressures rather than personal moral flaws.
Brings me back to the last module about the MBA students and the impact institutions have on the characters of individuals. Where should we look to when looking to distribute accountability? We know the impact of social pressure and influence, so is it primarily the fault of institutions?
Difference between stated values and actual accountability
Yu: Makes a direct comparison between Enron and J&J and the more applicable modern-day trend of AI companies. These are organizations that have publicly claimed to "serve humanity," but they can just as easily morally decouple the stated mission from their actual profit-driven decisions.
Parallels Enron waiving their moral code when convenient and J&J abusing their positive reputation to fake their data with the contraceptive patches.
Bazerman: Touches on the idea of putting all weight and priority on the outcome and goal rather than the ethical quality of the decision making process.
Relates to the example with the salespeople: they are more concerned about sales volume rather than profits because of their incentive structure
Connects to Module 1 on the "good life". Just like when Missie May was willing to compromise her morals to get with Slemmons and Nikolai was willing to do anything possible to be wealthy, we live in a society now that seems to solely be prioritizing the end goal of profit maximization/shareholder value.