Withstanding moral disengagement: Attachment security as an ethical intervention

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Highlights

  • We propose an ethical intervention with the potential to reduce unethical decision-making.

  • We challenge the relationship between moral disengagement and unethical decision-making.

  • We use attachment theory as the basis for the ethical intervention.

  • Individuals primed with attachment anxiety experience the usual effects of moral disengagement.

  • However, individuals primed with attachment security are able to withstand moral disengagement.

Abstract

We propose an ethical intervention leading to improved ethical decision-making. Moral disengagement has long been related to unethical decision-making. We test an ethical intervention in which this relationship is broken. Our ethical intervention consisted of priming individuals to be securely-attached, in which they recalled a past instance of relational support and acceptance. We predicted and found an interaction between attachment state and moral disengagement, in which individuals primed with attachment security were able to withstand moral disengagement. In Study 1, we demonstrate that the securely attached behave more ethically than the anxiously attached in an achievement context. In Study 2, we show that secure attachment overrides one's natural propensity to morally disengage. In Study 3, we find that secure attachment minimizes the impact of the propensity to morally disengage through the mechanism of threat construal. Within both student and working adult samples and using both judgment and behavioral dependent variables, we show that the priming of secure attachment is a relatively simple and effective intervention that managers, educators, and organizations can use to reduce unethical behavior.

Introduction

While Albert Bandura (1986) never actually said those words, he did first put forth the notion of moral disengagement and perhaps, the subsequent literature on moral disengagement is captured in that hypothetical quotation. Moral disengagement enables ordinary people to do unethical things, free from the stomach-churning and self-flagellation that such behavior usually evokes (Bandura, 1990). Much like the hours after midnight, the mind after moral disengagement seems to welcome transgressions, both the everyday and trivial sort as well as the cruel and egregious (ranging from taking home office supplies to perpetuating genocide: Bandura, 1999, Bandura et al., 1996, Fiske, 2004, Moore, 2007, Moore et al., 2012, Ntayi et al., 2010). The current paper investigates a condition under which this seemingly tight linkage between moral disengagement and ethical transgressions might not hold. Specifically, we hypothesize and test an ethical intervention based on attachment theory that enables individuals to withstand moral disengagement.

Section snippets

Moral disengagement

Moral disengagement is a psychological process by which individuals engage in sanctionable behavior without distress or self-condemnation (Bandura, 1990). More specifically, moral disengagement refers to a set of eight cognitive mechanisms which serve to disinhibit an individual's unethical behavior (Bandura, 1986): moral justification, euphemistic labeling, advantageous comparison, displacement of responsibility, diffusion of responsibility, disregarding or distorting the consequences,

Attachment theory

In its original form, attachment theory (Ainsworth et al., 1978, Bowlby, 1982) captured the idea that early close-relationships experienced by children shape the psychological template for the relationships that the child will eventually form as an adult. Attachment orientations are characterized as secure (anticipating that one's needs will be met), anxious (uncertain if one's needs will be met), avoidant (withdrawing so that the dependence on others for meeting needs is less), or fearful

Attachment, ethics, and threat construal

Attachment orientation has been linked to ethical beliefs and behavior (Albert and Horowitz, 2009, Ennis et al., 2008, Gillath et al., 2010, Van Ijzendoorn and Zwart-Woudstra, 1995). For example, attachment security generated the most ethical beliefs in a consumer context (Albert & Horowitz, 2009) and attachment security enhanced authenticity and honesty in relational contexts (Gillath et al., 2010). In this paper, we explore why the anxiously attached behave less honestly than the securely

Participants and design

Fifty-six people were recruited through a national on-line subject pool via Qualtrics in the United States and were paid for their participation. Eighteen percent of the sample was male; the mean age was 21.8 (S.D. = 2.15). Twenty-seven percent had completed high school, 70% had completed at least some college, and 3% had an advanced degree. Participants were randomly assigned to either the secure or anxious attachment conditions.

Procedure

Participants read a paragraph priming attachment state (e.g.,

Participants and design

One hundred one students at a Northeastern U.S. university participated to fulfill a course research requirement. Forty-three percent were male, and the average age was 20.93 (S.D. = 3.09). Forty-two percent reported being American, 17% were Chinese, 4% were from the Dominican Republic, and the remaining 37% reflected nationalities represented by fewer than 3%. Participants were randomly assigned to either an attachment security or anxiety condition.

Procedure

Attachment was primed as in Study 1.

Participants and design

Three hundred and fifteen individuals were recruited via Mturk to participate for $1.00 plus a potential performance bonus of up to $1.00. Fifty percent were male and the average age was 33 years (S.D. = 11.57). All participants reported speaking English as a first language. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: secure or anxious attachment.

Procedure

Participants were told that the study would take place in five parts. In Part 1, they completed a 24-item measure of moral

General discussion

The link between moral disengagement and unethical decision-making (Detert et al., 2008, Moore et al., 2012) is well-established. We investigated an ethical intervention grounded in attachment theory that breaks the link, allowing individuals to withstand their propensity to morally disengage. One of the most influential theories in developmental and social psychology is attachment theory (Bowlby, 1982, Mikulincer and Shaver, 2007) and the insights of attachment theory provide the foundation

Conclusion

We have drawn from the attachment and moral disengagement literatures to posit that state-based attachment interacts with moral disengagement in predicting ethics. The current paper contributes to the theoretical understanding of unethical behavior, deepening our knowledge of its basis and mitigating circumstances, and in the future, we are hopeful that this understanding will grow in this line of research. Our goal was to develop an ethical intervention that could diminish the impact of moral

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    The authors thank Steve Blader, Joseph Garcia, David Mayer, and Julia Turret for their assistance, as well as Shelly Gable and two anonymous reviewers. The first two authors contributed equally to this work; first authorship was determined by a coin toss.

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