By Lorne Michael Hartman
Consider the following scenario. You’re facing pressure to meet quarterly targets, but the numbers aren’t quite where they need to be. With a deadline looming, you “round up” a figure just slightly to make the results look better.
This kind of thinking is far more common than many realize. Research in behavioural ethics shows these subtle choices are exactly how unethical behaviour takes root in organizations.
Most people see themselves as fair, rational and ethical, yet research in behavioural ethics consistently shows we are far less objective than we assume.
Even well-intentioned people can explain away questionable actions — not because they’re immoral, but because their minds are wired to protect their moral self-image.
How we talk ourselves into bad decisions
The concept of moral disengagement describes the subtle mental moves people use to convince themselves that ethical standards don’t apply “just this once.” Rather than viewing themselves as rule-breakers, people reframe their behaviour in ways that allow them to feel moral while acting otherwise.
These rationalizations tend to take the following forms:
- “It’s just creative accounting.” This is euphemistic labelling, which reframes misconduct in more acceptable terms.
- “I did it for the team.” A form of moral justification that recasts a self-serving decision as altruistic.
- “Everyone signed off on it.” Here, individuals displace responsibility onto colleagues or superiors.
- “It’s not a big deal.” This involves distorting the consequences and minimizing impacts of choices.
- “At least we’re not as bad as the competition.” Known as advantageous comparison, this tactic makes questionable behaviour seem reasonable by contrasting it with a worse alternative.
These narratives allow people to preserve a positive self-image even when their actions contradict their values. Over time, these narratives can normalize misconduct and corrode workplace culture.
The real-world impact of moral rationalization
Unethical behaviour in organizations isn’t rare, nor is it limited to a few “bad apples.” Research indicates that harmful or dishonest actions at work result in significant financial losses for companies and society, amounting to billions of dollars each year.
While we often assume unethical behaviour is driven by personal greed, high-profile corporate scandals tell a different story. In cases like the Boeing 737 Max crashes, Siemens’ corruption scandal or Volkswagen’s emissions scandal, news coverage suggest employees were motivated by a sense of obligation, loyalty or pressure to advance company goals, not by personal gain.
What’s striking is not just the number of people who participated, but how many recognized wrongdoing and remained silent. This pattern highlights a deeper problem: ethical failures rarely result from deliberate malice.
They emerge when ordinary people talk themselves into crossing lines they would normally respect. Understanding how that happens is essential if leaders want to create workplaces where employees don’t just know the right thing to do, but actually act on it.
Why ethics training often falls flat
Many organizations assume that teaching employees the rules will naturally translate into better behaviour. However, knowledge alone doesn’t close the gap between intention and action.
Across several studies, I examined whether moral disengagement can be reduced through training and reframing. In one experiment, participants learned to spot eight common rationalizations. They became adept at identifying these cognitive traps, but their awareness didn’t translate into making more ethical choices later.
In another experiment, we tried shifting how people thought about responsibility by emphasizing individual accountability over group harmony. This framing slightly reduced moral disengagement, especially among women, but the overall impact was modest.
Across all studies, the bottom line is that moral disengagement is stubborn. Simply knowing better rarely ensures that people will act better.
Why is it so difficult to move the needle? A key reason is that our explanations for why we behave the way we do are shaped by cultural norms learned early in life. Once formed, these beliefs are surprisingly resistant to change, even in the face of evidence or explicit instruction.
Culture is what drives ethical behaviour
If ethics training alone has limited impact, what does make a difference?
Our research points to workplace culture, which strongly shapes levels of moral disengagement and the ethical choices that follow.
We found that environments that prize assertiveness, competition and material success are more likely to encourage rationalizations. By contrast, cultures that emphasize care, modesty and concern for others make moral disengagement harder.
Ethical behaviour, in other words, is less a matter of personal integrity than organizational context.
When employees face unrealistic goals, aggressive norms or leaders who silence dissent, the space for ethical reflection becomes increasingly narrow. Rationalization fills the gap, allowing people to maintain a sense of integrity even as their decisions drift further from their values.
7 ways to resist rationalization at work
Creating an ethical organization means designing systems that make reflection easier and self-justification harder. Effective strategies include:
1. Normalizing ethical dialogue. Ethical dilemmas often arise in grey areas, where there is no clear right or wrong answer. Leaders should encourage open discussions about ambiguous situations before they escalate into problems.
2. Rewarding the process, not only the result. When outcomes are all that matter, employees are more likely to cut corners or bend rules to achieve targets. By recognizing the work process, organizations reinforce the importance of integrity alongside performance.
3. Modelling moral humility. Leaders set the tone for acceptable behaviour. When they admit mistakes, they signal ethics is about vigilance, not moral perfection.
4. Building in “ethical speed bumps.” People are more likely to rationalize decisions under pressure. Interventions like checklists, second reviews or pausing to slow down can give employees the time to consider whether their actions align with ethical standards.
5. Creating psychological safety. Employees must feel confident that raising concerns or questioning decisions won’t lead to fear of reprisal or harm to their careers. Creating psychologically safe workplaces reduces the likelihood of ethical lapses.
6. Aligning incentives with values. When incentives focus only on short-term results or profit, employees are more likely to justify harmful shortcuts. Performance metrics should emphasize collaboration, accountability, feedback and conflict resolution.
7. Supporting well-being and work-life balance. Stress and burnout make people more prone to self-justification. Policies that support well-being indirectly foster ethical workplace behaviour.
These approaches reflect growing evidence that behaviour change requires more than information. It requires habit formation, cultural reinforcement and aligned systems.
Learning to be more reflective
Humans are rationalizing creatures. We edit our moral narratives to protect our sense of ourselves as good, competent and principled people. But understanding this tendency is empowering.
Leaders who recognize the psychology of moral disengagement can design workplace environments where ethical reflection is routine and the right decision is the easier one.
While we may never be able to fully eliminate rationalization, we can learn to notice it, question it and choose differently. Ethical workplace cultures are built on systems that help ordinary people do the right thing.
Lorne Michael Hartman, Associate Faculty, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto; York University, Canada
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
