Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-ndmmz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-24T17:36:04.362Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

6 - Always the hero to ourselves

The role of self-deception in unethical behavior

from Part II - Justifying dishonesty

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2016

By
Celia Moore
Edited by
Jan-Willem van Prooijen  and
Paul A. M. van Lange
Jan-Willem van Prooijen
Affiliation:
VU University Amsterdam
Paul A. M. van Lange
Affiliation:
VU University Amsterdam
Get access

Summary

A summary is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
Image of the first page of this content. For PDF version, please use the ‘Save PDF’ preceeding this image.'
Type
Chapter
Information
Cheating, Corruption, and Concealment
The Roots of Dishonesty
 , pp. 98 - 119
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2016

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allison, S. T., Messick, D. M., & Goethals, G. R. (1989). On being better but not smarter than others: The Muhammad Ali effect. Social Cognition, 7, 275–295.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, M. C., Ochsner, K. N., Kuhl, B., Cooper, J., Robertson, E., Gabrieli, S. W., … Gabrieli, J. D. E. (2004). Neural systems underlying the suppression of unwanted memories. Science, 303, 232–235.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ariely, D. (2012). The (honest) truth about dishonesty: How we lie to everyone–especially ourselves. New York: Harper.Google Scholar
Arkin, R., Cooper, H., & Kolditz, T. (1980). A statistical review of the literature concerning the self-serving attribution bias in interpersonal influence situations. Journal of Personality, 48, 435–448.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bandura, A. (1990). Mechanisms of moral disengagement. In Reich, W. (Ed.), Origins of terrorism: Psychologies, ideologies, states of mind (pp. 161–191). New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bandura, A. (1991). Social cognitive theory of moral thought and action. In Kurtines, W. M. & Gewirtz, J. L. (Eds.), Handbook of moral behavior and development (Vol. 1, pp.45–103). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Bandura, A. (2011). Self-deception: A paradox revisited. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 34, 16–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Batson, C. D., Kobrynowicz, D., Dinnerstein, J. L., Kampf, H. C., & Wilson, A. D. (1997). In a very different voice: Unmasking moral hypocrisy. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, 1335–1348.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Batson, C. D., Thompson, E. R., Seuferling, G., Whitney, H., & Strongman, J. A. (1999). Moral hypocrisy: Appearing moral to oneself without being so. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77, 525–537.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bernstein, J. (2013, October 10). NY fed fired examiner who took on Goldman. ProPublica. Retrieved from: www.propublica.org/article/ny-fed-fired-examiner-who-took-on-goldman.Google Scholar
Bernstein, J. (2014, September 26). Inside the New York Fed: Secret recordings and a culture clash. ProPublica. Retrieved from: www.propublica.org/article/carmen-segarras-secret-recordings-from-inside-new-york-fed.Google Scholar
Bersoff, D. M. (1999). Why good people sometimes do bad things: Motivated reasoning and unethical behavior. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25, 28–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blasi, A. (1984). Moral identity: Its role in moral functioning. In Kurtines, W. & Gewirtz, J. (Eds.), Morality, moral behavior and moral development (pp. 128–139). New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Burger, J. M. (1986). Temporal effects on attributions: Actor and observer differences. Social Cognition, 4, 377–387.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Callahan, D. (2004). The cheating culture: Why more Americans are doing wrong to get ahead. New York: Harcourt.Google Scholar
Chance, Z., Norton, M. I., Gino, F., & Ariely, D. (2011). Temporal view of the costs and benefits of self-deception. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108 (Supplement 3), 15655–15959.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chicago Tribune. (1990, February 23). “I Don`t Recall” marks excerpts of Reagan testimony. Retrieved from: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1990–02-23/news/9001160085_1_john-poindexter-recall-reagan-testimony.Google Scholar
Chrobak, Q., & Zaragoza, M. (2008). Inventing stories: Forcing witnesses to fabricate entire fictitious events leads to freely reported false memories. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 15, 1190–1195.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cooper, J. (2007). Cognitive dissonance: Fifty years of a classic theory. Los Angeles: Sage.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
D’Argembeau, A., & Van der Linden, M. (2008). Remembering pride and shame: Self-enhancement and the phenomenology of autobiographical memory. Memory, 16, 538–547.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dana, J., Weber, R., & Kuang, J. (2007). Exploiting moral wiggle room: Experiments demonstrating an illusory preference for fairness. Economic Theory, 33, 67–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Darley, J. M., & Latané, B. (1968). Bystander intervention in emergencies: Diffusion of responsibility. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 8, 377–383.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dawson, E., Savitsky, K., & Dunning, D. (2006). “Don’t tell me, I don’t want to know”: Understanding people’s reluctance to obtain medical diagnostic information. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 36, 751–768.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ditto, P. H., & Lopez, D. F. (1992). Motivated skepticism: Use of differential decision criteria for preferred and nonpreferred conclusions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 568–584.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ditto, P. H., Munro, G. D., Apanovitch, A. M., Scepansky, J. A., & Lockhart, L. K. (2003). Spontaneous skepticism: The interplay of motivation and expectation in responses to favorable and unfavorable medical diagnoses. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29, 1120–1132.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dunning, D., Meyerowitz, J. A., & Holzberg, A. D. (1989). Ambiguity and self-evaluation: The role of idiosyncratic trait definitions in self-serving assessments of ability. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 1082–1090.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ehrich, K. R., & Irwin, J. R. (2005). Willful ignorance in the request for product attribute information. Journal of Marketing Research, 42, 266–277.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Evanston, IL: Row, Peterson.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Festinger, L., & Freedman, J. (1964). Dissonance reduction and moral values. In Worchel, S. & Byrne, D. (Eds.), Personality change (pp. 220–247). New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Fingarette, H. (1969). Self-deception. New York: Humanities Press.Google Scholar
Forsyth, D. R., Pope, W. R., & McMillan, J. H. (1985). Students’ reactions after cheating: An attributional analysis. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 10, 72–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Freud, S. (1900/1955). The interpretation of dreams. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Gabor, T. (1994). Everybody does it: Crime by the public. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gonsalves, B., & Paller, K. A. (2002). Mistaken memories: Remembering events that never happened. The Neuroscientist, 8, 391–395.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gonsalves, B., Reber, P. J., Gitelman, D. R., Parrish, T. B., Mesulam, M.-M., & Paller, K. A. (2004). Neural evidence that vivid imagining can lead to false remembering. Psychological Science, 15, 655–660.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Green, J. D., Sedikides, C., & Gregg, A. P. (2008). Forgotten but not gone: The recall and recognition of self-threatening memories. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44, 547–561.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greenwald, A. G. (1980). The totalitarian ego: Fabrication and revision of personal history. American Psychologist, 35, 603–618.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gur, R. C., & Sackeim, H. A. (1979). Self-deception: A concept in search of a phenomenon. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 147–169.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haight, M. R. (1980). A study of self-deception. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press.Google Scholar
Hays, T., & Neumeister, L. (2013, November 12). Longtime Madoff employee tells jury he didn’t ask questions as fraud grew. Associated Press. Retrieved from: www.ctvnews.ca/business/longtime-madoff-employee-tells-jury-he-didn-t-ask-questions-as-fraud-grew-1.1539144.Google Scholar
Hersh, S. M. (2015, March 30). The scene of the crime: A reporter’s journey to My Lai and the secrets of the past. New Yorker. Retrieved from: www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/03/30/the-scene-of-the-crime.Google Scholar
Hill, C., Memon, A., & McGeorge, P. (2008). The role of confirmation bias in suspect interviews: A systematic evaluation. Legal and Criminological Psychology, 13, 357–371.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jamner, L. D., & Schwartz, G. E. (1986). Self-deception predicts self-report and endurance of pain. Psychosomatic Medicine, 48, 211–223.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kunda, Z. (1987). Motivated inference: Self-serving generation and evaluation of causal theories. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53, 636–647.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Latané, B., & Darley, J. M. (1968). Group inhibition of bystander intervention in emergencies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 10, 215–221.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Levy, N. (2004). Self-deception and moral responsibility. Ratio, 17, 294–311.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Linden, W., Paulhus, D. L., & Dobson, K. S. (1986). Effects of response styles on the report of psychological and somatic distress. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 54, 309–313.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lu, H. J., & Chang, L. (2011). The association between self-deception and moral self-concept as functions of self-consciousness. Personality and Individual Differences, 51, 845–849.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lynn, C. D., Pipitone, R. N., & Keenan, J. P. (2014). To thine own self be false: Self-deceptive enhancement and sexual awareness influences on mating success. Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences, 8, 109–122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, M. W. (1986). Self-deception and morality. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas.Google Scholar
Mather, M., & Carstensen, L. L. (2005). Aging and motivated cognition: The positivity effect in attention and memory. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 9, 496–502.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mazar, N., Amir, O., & Ariely, D. (2008). The dishonesty of honest people: A theory of self-concept maintenance. Journal of Marketing Research, 45, 633–644.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mele, A. R. (2001). Self-deception unmasked. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Messick, D. M., Bloom, S., Boldizar, J. P., & Samuelson, C. D. (1985). Why we are fairer than others. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 21, 480–500.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Milgram, S. (1974). Obedience to authority: An experimental view. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Miller, D. T. (1976). Ego involvement and attributions for success and failure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 34, 901–906.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, D. T., & Ross, M. (1975). Self-serving biases in the attribution of causality: Fact or fiction? Psychological Bulletin, 82, 213–225.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mills, J. (1958). Changes in moral attitudes following temptation. Journal of Personality, 26, 517–531.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Monroe, K. R. (2001). Morality and a sense of self: The importance of identity and categorization for moral action. American Journal of Political Science, 45, 491–507.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Monroe, K. R. (2008). Cracking the code of genocide: The moral psychology of rescuers, bystanders, and Nazis during the Holocaust. Political Psychology, 29, 699–736.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moore, C. (2015). Moral disengagement. Current Opinion in Psychology, 6, 199–204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
New York Times. (2006, April 27). Lay blames Enron failure on attack of short-sellers. Retrieved from: www.nytimes.com/2006/04/27/business/worldbusiness/27iht-enron.html?_r=0.Google Scholar
Nickerson, R. S. (1998). Confirmation bias: A ubiquitous phenomenon in many guises. Review of General Psychology, 2, 175–220.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O’Banion, K., & Arkowitz, H. (1977). Social anxiety and selective memory for affective information about the self. Social Behavior and Personality, 5, 321–328.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O’Brien, B. (2009). Prime suspect: An examination of factors that aggravate and counteract confirmation bias in criminal investigations. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 15, 315–334.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quattrone, G. A., & Tversky, A. (1984). Causal versus diagnostic contingencies: On self-deception and on the voter’s illusion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 46, 237–248.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rick, S., Loewenstein, G., Monterosso, J. R., Langleben, D. D., Mazar, N., Amir, O., & Ariely, D. (2008). Commentaries and rejoinder to “The Dishonesty of Honest People.” Journal of Marketing Research, pp. 645–653.Google Scholar
Schweitzer, M. E., & Hsee, C. K. (2002). Stretching the truth: Elastic justification and motivated communication of uncertain information. The Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 25, 185–201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sedikides, C., & Green, J. D. (2004). What I don’t recall can’t hurt me: Information negativity versus information inconsistency as determinants of memorial self-defense. Social Cognition, 22, 4–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sedikides, C., & Green, J. D. (2009). Memory as a self-protective mechanism. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 3, 1055–1068.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shalvi, S., Dana, J., Handgraaf, M. J. J., & De Dreu, C. K. W. (2011). Justified ethicality: Observing desired counterfactuals modifies ethical perceptions and behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 115, 181–190.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shu, L. L., & Gino, F. (2012). Sweeping dishonesty under the rug: How unethical actions lead to forgetting of moral rules. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102, 1164–1177.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shu, L. L., Gino, F., & Bazerman, M. H. (2011). Dishonest deed, clear conscience: When cheating leads to moral disengagement and motivated forgetting. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 37, 330–349.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Snyder, M. L., Kleck, R. E., Strenta, A., & Mentzer, S. J. (1979). Avoidance of the handicapped: An attributional ambiguity analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 2297–2306.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Starek, J. E., & Keating, C. F. (1991). Self-deception and its relationship to success in competition. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 12, 145–155.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stewart, J. B. (2007, February 19 & 26). The Kona Files: How an obsession with leaks brought scandal to Hewlett-Packard. The New Yorker, 152–167.Google Scholar
Sweeny, K., Melnyk, D., Miller, W., & Shepperd, J. A. (2010). Information avoidance: Who, what, when, and why. Review of General Psychology, 14, 340–353.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, S. E. (1991). Asymmetrical effects of positive and negative events: The mobilization-minimization hypothesis. Psychological Bulletin, 110, 67–85.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tenbrunsel, A. E., Diekmann, K. A., Wade-Benzoni, K. A., & Bazerman, M. H. (2010). The ethical mirage: A temporal explanation as to why we are not as ethical as we think we are. Research in Organizational Behavior, 30, 153–173.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tenbrunsel, A. E., & Messick, D. M. (2004). Ethical fading: The role of self-deception in unethical behaviour. Social Justice Research, 17, 223–236.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trivers, R. (2000). The elements of a scientific theory of self-deception. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 907, 114–131.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Van Lange, P. A. M., & Sedikides, C. (1998). Being more honest but not necessarily more intelligent than others: Generality and explanations for the Muhammad Ali effect. European Journal of Social Psychology, 28, 675–680.3.0.CO;2-5>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
von Hippel, W., & Trivers, R. (2011). The evolution and psychology of self-deception. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 34, 1–16.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Walker, W. R., Skowronski, J. J., & Thompson, C. P. (2003). Life is pleasant – and memory helps to keep it that way! Review of General Psychology, 7, 203–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zitek, E. M., Jordan, A. H., Monin, B., & Leach, F. R. (2010). Victim entitlement to behave selfishly. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98, 245–255.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zuckerman, M. (1979). Attribution of success and failure revisited, or: The motivational bias is alive and well in attribution theory. Journal of Personality, 47, 245–287.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×