How Relative Concerns Affect Unethical Behaviors

Abstract:

We analyze positional concerns in the unethical domain. We introduce an original distinction between “selective” positionality—where individuals prefer behaving unethically but to a lesser extent than peers—and “ego” positionality—where they prefer behaving unethically but to a higher extent than peers, regardless of the absolute level. We also report the results of an exploratory survey in Algeria that exploits the counterintuitive insight that people are better at predicting others’ behaviors than their own behaviors. We increase the finding’s generalizability by conducting the same survey among a similar sample in France. Our findings are twofold: first, the majority of participants attributes to others preferences for ethical (i.e., where everyone is honest) and unethical egalitarian (where all are similarly dishonest) situations. Second, a non-negligible proportion of respondents attributes to the average individual preferences for either selective or ego-positionality in unethical behaviors.

Keywords:

• ethics
• position
• behavior
• survey
• Algeria
• France

JEL Classification Codes:

• D0
• D1

Notes

1 To do justice to this issue, some studies on positional concerns used non-WEIRD samples such as Solnick, Hong, and Hemenway (2007), Carlsson and Qin (2010), Bekir, El Harbi, and Grolleau (2011), Bekir et al. (2015), Akay et al. (2014), and Barbara, Grolleau, and Mzoughi (2017).

2 Of course, using a sample of employees can reinforce the validity of the results. Surveying students on employee-related behaviors can, indeed, seem surprising at first glance. Nevertheless, we contend that many students apply and occupy part-time jobs, achieve paid internships, and can therefore provide realistic insights. Even if some scholars question the external validity of findings drawn from obtained from student, James Druckman and Cindy Kam (2011) argue that this criticism is frequently misplaced. They stated “that student subjects are not an inherent problem to experimental research; moreover, a case can be made that the burden of proof of student subjects being a problem should lie with critics rather than experimenters.”

3 Another reference point can be the situation that maximizes the monetary payoff of a self-interested individual, that could be A or C in our example.

4 In the Algerian study, we also examined the effect of socio-demographic characteristics (not gathered in the French study) on the probability to choose positional and unethically-egalitarian options over the ethical option (used as a reference) but the results were weak. Controlling for individuals’ age, gender, income and education level in a multinomial logistic regression (not reported but available from authors upon request), we found that the considered variables are not significant in general. Although these findings should not be over-interpreted since the model is probably underspecified, they are similar to most of the previous literature stating that socio-demographic characteristics are poor predictors of positional choices (Barbara, Grolleau, and Mzoughi 2017 and references therein), except on very specific domains such as physical attractiveness (see e.g., Solnick and Hemenway 1998).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Latifa Barbara

Latifa Barbara is at the Algiers Business School, Algeria. Gilles Grolleau is at CEE-M, Univ. Montpellier, CNRS, INRAE, Institut Agro, Montpellier, France. Naoufel Mzoughi (Corresponding author) is with INRAE, ECODEVELOPPEMENT, Avignon, France.

Gilles Grolleau

Latifa Barbara is at the Algiers Business School, Algeria. Gilles Grolleau is at CEE-M, Univ. Montpellier, CNRS, INRAE, Institut Agro, Montpellier, France. Naoufel Mzoughi (Corresponding author) is with INRAE, ECODEVELOPPEMENT, Avignon, France.

Naoufel Mzoughi

Latifa Barbara is at the Algiers Business School, Algeria. Gilles Grolleau is at CEE-M, Univ. Montpellier, CNRS, INRAE, Institut Agro, Montpellier, France. Naoufel Mzoughi (Corresponding author) is with INRAE, ECODEVELOPPEMENT, Avignon, France.