Don’t Blame Me, Blame Those around Me: How Family and Friends Induce Unethical Acts

ABSTRACT

While family and close friends often encourage prosocial behaviors, their influence can also be malevolent. The current research examines how people react to scenarios where a close other pressures a protagonist to commit an unethical act. The vignettes varied who was encouraging the unethical act (family vs. peer), level of pressure (low vs. high), who benefits from the action (self vs. close other) while also considering whether participants resided in an independent or collectivistic culture (U.S. vs. India). Results revealed that pressure from family, compared to friends, was more powerful for U.S. participants than Indian participants. More pressure increased the likelihood of committing the unethical act and decreased perceived responsibility. However, failing to comply resulted in substantial anticipated social rejection, especially if the unethical act benefits the close other. Although family and friends often teach us good morals, that influence can also open the door for potential unethical behaviors.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Sahil Shete, Katie McCarthy, Michelle Metzger, Ruth Lavenda, Tierney Thomison, and Mason Rhodes for their assistance in material development and data collection.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no conflicts of interest with respect to the research presented. Moreover, this work has not been published elsewhere and that it has not been submitted simultaneously for publication elsewhere.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Linus Chan

Linus Chan is an experimental psychology Ph.D. candidate at the University of Montana. He researches how political ideology is influenced by socio-economic factors, and how political orientation influences education, impression management, and moral outrage.

Carol Y. Yoder is a professor of psychology at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, where she teaches life-span development, cognitive psychology, and cross-cultural psychology. Current research focuses on cross-cultural differences in approaching and managing problems, including real-life applications in maritime safety and consumer marketing decisions in product branding.