Social Desirability Bias The first bias I will discuss is the social desirability bias. People, accountants included, tend to respond to questions about socially acceptable behavior with an answer that is not true of themselves but rather answer with a behavior that is seen as acceptable by society. For example, when a candidate for a job is asked how important pay is to their decision the candidates respond with moderate answer. This is because it is considered socially unacceptable to take a position with pay as the primary influence. People tend to under state their use of behaviors that are seen as unacceptable socially such as drunk driving or the use of illegal drugs. The opposite is also true. We tend to overestimate our involvement in socially admired behaviors such as giving and helping people who are less fortunate. (Chung & Monroe, 2013) Another factor of social desirability bias is that an individual will tend to overstate their value of ethics when comparing themselves to their peers. A study was done to …show more content…
This is known as the optimism bias. It can have positive and negative results. For example, when someone who has an optimism bias is sick they may not seek needed medical care because of the misperceived optimism. Optimism isn’t always negative as it can be associated with better health and better performance on the job. (Love, Kopec, & Guest, 2015) A study was conducted demonstrating this bias. NFL fans were asked to predict how many wins their favorite team would win and how many teams their least favorite team would win. What they discovered is that fans were overly optimistic about their favorite team’s potential and overly pessimistic about their least favorite team’s potential. This confirmed that optimistic bias exists among fans of the NFL. (Love, Kopec, & Guest,
Two phenomena- hindsight bias and judgmental overconfidence- illustrate why we can’t rely solely on intuition and common sense.
When it comes to ethics, there is often a connection between morals and social behavior. Depending on the person, these aspects of ethics can really affect the side that somebody will take in a situation. There are different circumstances for everything, and different situations can change the way that certain people will react to them. In real life, an example of this would be whether or not somebody feels compelled to help a homeless person and the reasoning behind the decision.
This is untrue due to the research conducted. It was found that people with higher expectations are happier. When they succeed they are happier and when they fail they strive to do better next time to get to their goal(s). The people who set lower expectations will not feel the same amount of happiness when they finish goal because of it being a low expectation. Another reason low expectations don’t work well is because they usually lack the anticipation of succeeding. The anticipation will make people generally happier and Dr. Sharot talks about Friday being the best day of the work week because of the anticipation of the weekend. She concludes with optimism being good because it makes you try harder and lowers stress and anxiety. Overconfidence while similar to optimism bias has its own effect on decision making. Overconfidence will usually make us think we are capable of completing tasks quickly that should take multiple days/hours. This overconfidence it what makes students say they think they can get the assignment done in one class period even though they haven't done that worksheet before. Belief perseverance is also a way our beliefs neglect the facts because of what we
I have never been the most optimistic person. Although I can find positivity in virtuous situations, I can also nitpick at minor negative aspects of substandard ones. As I read
This Ted Talk is about optimism bias which is the tendency to think more positively about a person’s life than to think negatively. We have these high expectations that good things would happen than bad ones. It is a positive bias towards an event before the event actually happens. The optimism bias is a naturally occurring phenomenon that seems to become part of human nature because it is an overall tendency to bring upon good things in life over a pessimistic bias (Sharot, 2011).
Gino, F., Moore, D. A., & Bazerman, M. H., (2009). No harm, no foul: The outcome bias in ethical judgments.
The question of ethical behavior is an age-old conundrum. The prevailing issue with ethics is that it is extremely difficult to measure. A person’s moral fabric is largely based on their particular personality traits, as well as, their psychological state and environmental influences. Many believe that ethics are tied to a person’s conscience, and that good morals are often facilitated by a strong religious background. Furthermore, a person’s moral development can be linked to their economic situation and cultural differences. Interestingly, even while examining the status of one’s moral code is challenging; everyone seems to have their own unique array of ethics.
Morals, values, and ethics are one of the most important characteristics of a person. These features define who we are and what we believe in. Many different factors come in to play when determining a person`s morals, values, and ethics; childhood upbringing, later life experiences, family, friends, culture, religious beliefs, race, discussions with others, and many others that have an affect a person’s beliefs (Head, 2006). There are times when a person`s beliefs do not agree with someone else’s, which does not mean that one of these people is wrong, it means that we, as individuals, do not all think the same. As a whole, most people have a good sense of right and wrong, which is to say that for the most part most people have good morals,
Individual ethics refer to the ability to differentiate what is right from what is wrong. This may entail personal values, norms and beliefs. The influence of individual beliefs and values as well as the values of the coworkers has a great impact on an individual’s decision making (Ferrell, Fraedrich and Ferrell, 2006). While some organizations encourage their employees to come up with ethical choices, other organizations lead to promotion of immoral conduct within their employees. There is an assumption that many people make choices which are grounded on their personal values and beliefs. According to social scientists, there are various factors that influence ethical decision making, and individual factors are among the significant factors to consider.
I was influenced the way I determine different actions or behavior in a particular situation since I was a child. Growing up with a Baptist mother and four brothers made me value different things and behave in a particular way. In addition, this made me a have a particular ethical system that influences the way I work and act as an individual. At the corporation level, ethics is important because they set the rules and policy. In this paper, I will explain the developmental aspects of my ethics as well as my ethical system, the effects of my ethics at my workplace, and importance of ethics in an association to achieve its goals.
Optimism in some cases is a desirable trait due to its fundamental nature. Being optimistic allows people to keep their head high and keep moving, even through the most dire situations that they may face. Optimism is a priority because it helps people in various ways and, also a very prominent trait in some people. In life, optimism is often viewed as a desirable trait, and something that can benefit somebody’s life.
A social bias is a prejudice attitude aimed at a particular race, culture, ethnic group, religion, or sexual orientation. People with limited vision often form negative opinions toward a group of people without knowing who they are. People have to be careful with the thought process because it can lead him or her to make a judgmental statement toward an individual, or a group of individuals, without the person realizing that the statement or comment was prejudicial. In this paper the concept of social biases,
These factors include gender, age, nationality, and religion as well as education and experience also influences the way that individuals make ethical decisions (Craft, 2012). Factors like these influence the counselor’s values which alters their ethical decision-making ability. Craft (2012) suggests that personality traits such as self-control, mindfulness, extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness to experience also influence ethical decision-making. Additionally, implicit attitudes, while not impacting moral judgment did affect the predictability of ethical decision-making of an individual. The author also suggests that factors such as the affective state of the individual can affect their decision-making
Our current social belief is that people who are in the bottom of socioeconomic ladder tend to act more unethical than the people who located in the top of the socioeconomic ladder because we see those people with low SES to be more hostile, less educated and with less regards to others. In addition, we are also quick to assume that the upper class are more helpful than the lower class people because they are the ones who has the money and other resources to help. The research study has actually found that in many cases, upper class people behave more unethical than the people in lower class because of psychological and structural factors such as independent self-construal and increase goal focus. Upper class people may feel like their
Individual factors helps to understand the reason for some people perceive specific action to be unethical whiles others do not. However, the decision-making cannot simply be explained in terms of these individual factors, because after all several people seems to have ‘multiple ethical selves’ (Trevino and Nelson 2007:180) – that is, they make different decisions in different situations. Situational factors accepted to be the most important.