Individual Differences and Ethics
Our values and personality influence how ethical we behave.
Situational factors, rewards, and punishments following unethical
choices as well as a company’s culture are extremely important, but
the role of personality and personal values should not be ignored.
Research reveals that people who have an economic value
orientation, that is, those who value acquiring money and wealth,
tend to make more unethical choices. In terms of personality,
employees with external locus of control were found to make more
unethical choices (Hegarty & Sims, 1978; Hegarty & Sims,
1979; Trevino & Youngblood, 1990).
Our perceptual processes are clear influences on whether or not
we behave ethically and how we respond to other people’s unethical
behaviors. It seems that self-enhancement bias operates for our
ethical decisions as well: We tend to overestimate how ethical we
are in general. Our self-ratings of ethics tend to be higher than
how other people rate us. This belief can create a glaring problem:
If we think that we are more ethical than we are, we will have
little motivation to improve. Therefore, understanding how other
people perceive our actions is important to getting a better
understanding of ourselves.
How we respond to unethical behavior of others will, to a large
extent, depend on the attributions we make. If we attribute
responsibility to the person in question, we are more likely to
punish that person. In a study on sexual harassment that occurred
after a workplace romance turned sour, results showed that if we
attribute responsibility to the victim, we are less likely to
punish the harasser (Pierce et al., 2004). Therefore, how we make
attributions in a given situation will determine how we respond to
others’ actions, including their unethical behaviors.
Individual Differences Around the Globe
Values that people care about vary around the world. In fact,
when we refer to a country’s culture, we are referring to values
that distinguish one nation from others. In other words, there is
systematic variance in individuals’ personality and work values
around the world, and this variance explains people’s behavior,
attitudes, preferences, and the transferability of management
practices to other cultures.
When we refer to a country’s values, this does not mean that
everyone in a given country shares the same values. People differ
within and across nations. There will always be people who care
more about money and others who care more about relationships
within each culture. Yet there are also national differences in the
percentage of people holding each value. A researcher from Holland,
Geert Hofstede, conducted a landmark study covering over 60
countries and found that countries differ in four dimensions: the
extent to which they put individuals or groups first
(individualism), whether the society subscribes to equality or
hierarchy among people (power distance), the degree to which the
society fears change (uncertainty avoidance), and the extent to
which the culture emphasizes acquiring money and being successful
(masculinity) (Hofstede, 2001). Knowing about the values held in a
society will tell us what type of a workplace would satisfy and
motivate employees.
Are personality traits universal? Researchers found that
personality traits identified in Western cultures translate well to
other cultures. For example, the five-factor model of personality
is universal in that it explains how people differ from each other
in over 79 countries. At the same time, there is variation among
cultures in the dominant personality traits. In some countries,
extraverts seem to be the majority, and in some countries the
dominant trait is low emotional stability. For example, people from
Europe and the United States are characterized by higher levels of
extraversion compared to those from Asia and Africa. There are many
factors explaining why some personality traits are dominant in some
cultures. For example, the presence of democratic values is related
to extraversion. Because democracy usually protects freedom of
speech, people may feel more comfortable socializing with strangers
as well as with friends, partly explaining the larger number of
extraverts in democratic nations. Research also shows that in
regions of the world that historically suffered from infectious
diseases, extraversion and openness to experience was less
dominant. Infectious diseases led people to limit social contact
with strangers, explaining higher levels of introversion. Plus, to
cope with infectious diseases, people developed strict habits for
hygiene and the amount of spice to use in food, and deviating from
these standards was bad for survival. This explains the lower
levels of openness to experience in regions that experienced
infectious diseases (McCrae & Costa, 1997; McCrae et al., 2005;
Schaller & Murray, 2008).
Is basic human perception universal? It seems that there is
variation around the globe in how we perceive other people as well
as ourselves. One difference is the importance of the context.
Studies show that when perceiving people or objects, Westerners pay
more attention to the individual, while Asians pay more attention
to the context. For example, in one study, when judging the emotion
felt by the person, the Americans mainly looked at the face of the
person in question, while the Japanese also considered the emotions
of the people surrounding the focal person. In other words, the
Asian subjects of the experiment derived meaning from the context
as well as by looking at the person (Masuda et al., 2008).
There seems to be some variation in the perceptual biases we
commit as well. For example, human beings have a tendency to
self-enhance. We see ourselves in a more positive light than others
do. Yet, the traits in which we self-enhance are culturally
dependent. In Western cultures, people may overestimate how
independent and self-reliant they are. In Asian cultures, such
traits are not necessarily desirable, so they may not embellish
their degree of independence. Yet, they may overestimate how
cooperative and loyal to the group they are because these traits
are more desirable in collectivistic cultures (Sedikides, Gaertner,
& Toguchi, 2003; Sedikides, Gaertner, & Vevea, 2005).
Given the variation in individual differences around the globe,
being sensitive to these differences will increase our managerial
effectiveness when managing a diverse group of people.
Personality Around the Globe
Which nations have the highest average self-esteem? Researchers
asked this question by surveying almost 17,000 individuals across
53 nations, in 28 languages.
Based on this survey, these are the top 10 nations in terms of
self-reported self-esteem.
- Serbia
- Chile
- Israel
- Peru
- Estonia
- United States
- Turkey
- Mexico
- Croatia
- Austria
The 10 nations with the lowest self-reported self-esteem are the
following:
- South Korea
- Switzerland
- Morocco
- Slovakia
- Fiji
- Taiwan
- Czech Republic
- Bangladesh
- Hong Kong
- Japan
Source: Adapted from information in Denissen, J. J. A., Penke,
L., & Schmitt, D. P. (2008, July). Self-esteem reactions to
social interactions: Evidence for sociometer mechanisms across
days, people, and nations. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 95, 181–196; Hitti, M. (2005). Who’s no. 1 in
self-esteem? Serbia is tops, Japan ranks lowest, U.S. is no. 6 in
global survey. WebMD. Retrieved November 14, 2008, from http://www.webmd.com/skin-beauty/news/20050927/whos-number-1-in-self-esteem;
Schmitt, D. P., & Allik, J. (2005). The simultaneous
administration of the Rosenberg self-esteem scale in 53 nationals:
Culture-specific features of global self-esteem. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
89, 623–642.
Key Takeaways
There is a connection between how ethically we behave and our
individual values, personality, and perception. Possessing values
emphasizing economic well-being predicts unethical behavior. Having
an external locus of control is also related to unethical decision
making. We are also likely to overestimate how ethical we are,
which can be a barrier against behaving ethically. Culture seems to
be an influence over our values, personality traits, perceptions,
attitudes, and work behaviors. Therefore, understanding individual
differences requires paying careful attention to the cultural
context.
Exercises
- If ethical decision making depends partially on personality,
what can organizations do to increase the frequency of ethical
behaviors?
- Do you think personality tests used in Western cultures in
employee selection can be used in other cultures?
References
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