By Ernest Owens NOVEMBER 15, 2020 — 2:00PM Q: What steps do you go through when you make a business decision? A: The assumption is you are conducting a cost vs. benefit analysis. You are in a situation where you want to optimize your return. First state the problem clearly; what are you trying to improve? Then…

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We’re all familiar with optical or auditory illusions and how they can affect our perception. But just as our physical senses can be tricked, our moral sense can be fooled, too. Moral illusions can lead even the most well-meaning people astray. Learning about behavioral ethics can help you uncover these moral illusions. And it can…

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Tangible and abstract describes how we react more to vivid, immediate inputs than to ones removed in time and space, meaning we can pay insufficient attention to the adverse consequences our actions have on others.

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Role morality is the tendency we have to use different moral standards for the different roles we play in society.

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Moral emotions are the feelings and intuitions that play a major role in most of our ethical decision making and actions.

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We hate losses about twice as much as we enjoy gains, meaning we are more likely to act unethically to avoid a loss than to secure a gain. This phenomenon is known as loss aversion.

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Referred to as the slippery slope, incrementalism describes how we unconsciously lower our ethical standards over time through small changes in behavior.

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Incentive gaming, or “gaming the system,” refers to when we figure out ways to increase our rewards for performance without actually improving our performance.

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Ethical fading occurs when we are so focused on other aspects of a decision that its ethical dimensions fade from view.

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Conflict of interest arises when we have incentives that conflict with our professional duties and responsibilities in ways that cause harm to others and to society.

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