Ethical decision making: on balancing right and wrong

Possessing private information allows people to dishonestly benefit themselves on the expense of others. While evidence for dishonesty in society is clear, people often lie in modest ways. Using minor lies allows people to simultaneously benefit financially while feeling honest. However, these minor dishonest acts cost a fortune to society. It is thus important to advance our understanding about factors that influence people’s likelihood to use such type of minor dishonesty. Here we provided evidence that people suffer a psychological cost of the mere act of lying, that they use justifications as these allow them to dishonestly gain money while maintaining feeling honest, and finally that people are averse of social situations which allow them to use their information advantage to deceive other people in order to profit themselves. People clearly engage in ethical balancing between what feels ethically right and what feels ethically wrong. This dissertation provides insight into the way that people strike the ethical balance between what feels right and what feels wrong