Time to Reflect

Well, the time has finally come to write my final blog post for the term; it is hard to believe that it has already been nine weeks since I started this blog!  I have to say that this journey has been really insightful for me.  I have enjoyed it, and I appreciate the feedback that I have received along the way from my readers.  I think that in the future I will continue to blog after graduate school slows down or maybe after I graduate!  

For my final post, I would like to start off by discussing one of my favorite controversial experiments that I have had the opportunity to study this term: Stanley Milgram's shock experiment.  I watched a video this week that discussed the conception of experiment, as well as the results from the experiment, which were quite surprising at the time.

If you would like to watch the video, here it is:

I like to think that if I had been a participant in this experiment, I would have listened to my heart and not gone through with the shocking the other "participant" because it is wrong to hurt someone in order for a researcher to obtain data.  The participants in the study had no idea that they were not really hurting the "learners."  The "teachers" were under the impression that the shocks were gradually increasing in severity with each wrong answer that the "learner" provided.  What I found to be most interesting about this experiment was the four prods that the "experimenter" used to encourage the "teacher" to keep moving forward with the study.  I think that this is where the ethical line was crossed in this study because the participants were made to feel that they had to comply with the experiment, as opposed to being told that they could leave the experiment at any time.

The four prods that the experimenter gave the participants were as follows:  
"Please continue.  The experiment requires you to continue.  It is absolutely essential that you continue.  You have no other choice but to continue"  (McLeod, 2007).  

To me, the "experimenter" sounds like he would have been pretty convincing that the experiment had to continue, especially if he got all the way to the fourth prod.  This might have made it difficult for people to stand up and walk out of the room; however, there was a number of participants who did exactly that.  What do you think you would have done if you had been a participant in this study?  Would you have followed the "experimenter's" directions, or would you have rebelled and walked out of the experiment?  

On another note, this week we were asked what kind of advice we would give to a new or aspiring public servant, and this question elicited some thought-provoking responses from my classmates.  The main piece of advice that I would give an aspiring public servant would be to live and work by the Golden Rule, which means to treat others how one would want to be treated.  This kind of aligns with the duty-based approach of the ethics triad, which asks if you would want other people to make the same decision that you did.  An interesting piece of advice that one of my classmates posted was about failure and learning to move past it when it inevitably happens.  While not everyone will fail on a grand scale, I think his advice was solid because people are bound to encounter setbacks at one point or another during their public administration journey.  Instead of being discouraged by the setbacks, though, one should use the experience as a learning point and work on improvements for the next time.  I think it is unrealistic to think that we will never have any hardships in our careers because some aspects are simply out of our control.  When failures occur, we need to make the best out of them and learn from our bad experiences to be able to turn them into something positive for future endeavors.

I would like to wrap up this blog by sharing one of the most important aspects I have learned during this term.  In order to make decisions effectively, a person needs to look at the issue through multiple schools of thought in order to think about different approaches to the issue at hand.  The ethics triad, which considers three schools of thought (results-based, duty-based, and virtue ethics) is a comprehensive decision making tool that allows a person to make a well-rounded decision after they have contemplated all three schools of thought.  With that said, I know that I will be using this triad in the future to help me figure out the best way to handle tough decisions, and I hope that if you are unsure of how to handle a situation, you will use it, too.

Thank you very much for reading my blog.  I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!

References:
McLeod, S. A. (2007). The Milgram Experiment. Retrieved from http://www.simplypsychology.org/milgram.html

Issues within Public Service

This week and last week, our textbook focused on the issues that arise within public service.  Unfortunately, we do not live in a perfect world, and problems are bound to arise, which we are reminded of in the news on a daily basis.  Over the past eight weeks, classmates in my ethics course have been posting about current events that focus on ethical issues, and it has been interesting to read about the different topics that people have found.  I know I said this last week, but it could not be more apparent: ethical issues and ethical dilemmas are everywhere if you keep an eye out for them.  It really is no wonder that many organizations implement annual or even quarterly ethics trainings for their employees.  While many people may shrug the training off as “common sense,” the numerous headlines that are generated on a daily basis make me think otherwise.  I read an article this week called “Audit Finds Provo Police Need More Ethics Training,” and in this article it was determined that at least two hours a year of annual ethics training should be incorporated for the officers (Reavy, 2011).  Personally, I think that ethics training is beneficial because not only does it address areas of concern that people may struggle with, but it also opens the floor for a dialogue between coworkers.  If people have justified their actions in their minds to the point where they do not feel like what they are doing is wrong, then this creates a real issue.  Without conversations to address “right versus wrong” behaviors, that line can become blurred.  I definitely believe that ethics training should be incorporated for all organizations and businesses, and if possible, I think that the training should be conducted in a face-to-face setting as opposed to an online setting.  In the military, we receive both types of ethics training, but I know that I, personally, get much more out of an interactive training than I do with an online training.

This week in our textbook, Bowman and West (2015) discussed how transparency within the government has both pros and cons.  Looking at pay confidentiality, specifically, this area has raised concerns over whether being transparent about financial matters or if confidentiality is best for everyone involved.  Like almost everything else in life, the key is to find the proper balance between the two. 

In keeping with the issues theme of the week, I watched a TEDTalk by Philip Zimbardo, who was the mastermind behind the Stanford Prison Experiment.  This specific talk discussed good and evil, and more specifically, the psychology behind it.  Typically, I would post the video in my blog so that you could watch it for yourself right here, but honestly, this one had some highly graphic pictures in it that were taken by U.S. military members, so I am hesitant to do so.  If you really want to watch it, here is the link, but be forewarned that there are some extremely graphic pictures in it: http://www.ted.com/talks/philip_zimbardo_on_the_psychology_of_evil.  A portion of his talk focused on the wrongdoings of people within the military at Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq.  As a military spouse and an “army civilian” I found this to be extremely disturbing that people would behave this way!  He mentioned that not all people are bad, and of course there are “bad apples” in any group; however, the pictures that the military members took were absolutely horrific.  What makes people do such terrible things to other human beings?  Zimbardo (2008) claimed that it was the situation that created the bad apples, which I believe to be true.  Having worked around the military, I fully believe that our military members are good people in general.  Zimbardo (2008) also discussed Milgram’s Shock Experiment, and how people would act evil in order to comply with rules of authority.  While people like to think that they know how they would behave when faced with a trying situation, it is tough to know for sure until they are actually in a situation that demands their response. 

Zimbardo (2008) discussed the power associated with anonymity, and he found that when people change their appearance, such as wearing a mask or changing in a way that makes the person unrecognizable, then they were significantly more likely to torture or even kill than someone who did not change their appearance.  He concluded his talk by saying that while some situations conjure up evil acts, those same situations can also conjure up heroic acts, as well.  Zimbardo (2008) discussed inaction as an evil behavior because knowing that something “bad” is happening and not taking a stance to correct it is evil, not heroic.  In order to act heroically, a person must act when others are too afraid to stand up and do what is right. 

Think about an instance where you have had to make a choice whether to take a stand against something or just sit back quietly because that was the easier option of the two.  Which did you end up doing?  

Thank you for visiting my blog!

References:

Bowman, J. S., and West, J. P. (2015). Public service ethics: Individual and institutional responsibilities.  Thousand Oaks, CA: CQ Press.

Reavy, P. (2011, February 2). Audit finds provo police need more ethics training. Deseret News. Retrieved from: http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705365780/Audit-finds-Provo-police-need-more-ethics-training.html?s_cid=fb_share

Zimbardo, P. (2008). The psychology of evil [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/philip_zimbardo_on_the_psychology_of_evil  

The Fudge Factor

This week I watched “The Lorax,” and surprisingly I found that there were several ethical issues riddled throughout the Dr. Seuss movie.  I think that one of the most significant aspects that I have noticed since I started taking this ethics course is that there are ethical dilemmas and ethical issues everywhere if you keep an eye out for them!  Granted, ethical dilemmas make for great movie plots because it is intriguing to see how others get themselves out of binds and sticky situations.  In “The Lorax,” the main character, the Once-ler, breaks his promise to the Lorax and makes the decision to cut down the trees in order to produce his new line of Thneeds (weird sweater/scarf things); however, in doing so, he robs the animals of their homes and he severely damages the environment.  He sings a song called “How Bad Can I Be,” and I think that this song sums up the message of the entire movie, so I am going to post the link so that you can listen to the lyrics before I discuss it further: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gp3Iy06NYaw.

The Once-ler kicks off the song by asking the duck if the duck thinks that he is bad.  The duck cannot talk and simply quacks back to everything that the Once-ler asks, and the Once-ler takes that as an agreement that he is a good person.  I think this symbolizes that people often hear what they want to hear—regardless of if it is the truth.   Our textbook discussed how and why honest people sometimes do dishonest things; many people who engage in unethical behaviors do not consider themselves to be dishonest people.  Bowman and West (2015) referred to this as the “fudge factor” and elaborated that this notion occurs as people contemplate just how much "bad" they can do while still being a "good" person.  Bowman and West (2015) further discussed how many people find it easier to act in unethical manners when there is more distance between them and the actual act; an example of this that they provided in the text was that if a person nudged his golf-ball with his shoe to inch it closer to the hole, this would likely be "easier" for him to do than to actually lean down and physically pick up the ball to move it.  The latter is blatant cheating; whereas, someone could justify the former action as an accident to minimize the guilt/blame.  I wonder how much fudging has to occur before a person will no longer feel that they are an honest person.  At what point do people cross the line?

At one point in the song, the Once-ler sings something along the lines of money makes the world go round, which shows that he is starting to lose his moral compass and get lost in the profits.  He even tries to justify his actions by saying that he is boosting the economy, so he questions how this can possibly be bad?  Furthermore, he sings that he cannot be bad because a portion of his profits go to “charity” although who knows which one or how much, if it is even true at all (the guy winking made me think otherwise).  I think that while the Once-ler started out feeling guilty about breaking his word to the Lorax and cutting down the trees, he eventually lost sight of his moral compass and could only see dollar signs.  The Once-ler was not a “bad” character at the beginning of the movie; on the contrary, he was one of the “good” guys just trying to succeed in life.  

Last week we had a class debate about whether or not people are born evil, or if evilness is something that people learn over the years.  Students had good arguments for both sides, but ultimately there was no definitive answer.  Personally, I think that people are born good, and their interactions with others and societal influences cause people to engage in good or evil behaviors.  I would be interested to hear what you all think, though!  In the case of the Once-ler, I would argue that he was definitely born "good" but he let his personal desires get the best of him and cloud his judgment when he unethically engaged in the mass Thneed production.  While this was just a movie, I think it is a good one to watch because of the adult implications sprinkled throughout it.  The movie showed that there are consequences for our actions, even if we did not intend for them to be harmful.  It showed the importance of thinking through decisions before going through with them, and it also showed how the Once-ler was full of remorse after-the-fact.  It was not until Ted stumbled onto the Once-ler's property that the Once-ler had the opportunity to "right" his wrongs that he had previously made. 

The word "UNLESS" appeared on a rock outside of the Once-ler's isolated house, and this rock reminded the Once-ler of an important message that wrapped up the movie.  The message was that unless someone cares enough to do something, nothing is ever going to improve.  The Once-ler was able to pass along the last seed to Ted, so that Ted would be able to grow a tree and hopefully reverse the cycle. 

The very end of the movie had the following quote by Dr. Seuss, and I believe that it is a powerful message that should resonate within all of us:

Thank you for visiting my blog! 

References:

Bowman, J. S., and West, J. P. (2015). Public service ethics: Individual and institutional responsibilities.  Thousand Oaks, CA: CQ Press.

The Front-Page Test

This week in my Ethics course, we read the letter that Martin Luther King Jr. wrote from the Birmingham Jail in response to the Alabama Clergymen.  Here is a link for the letter if you have not had a chance to read it but would like to: http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html  .

To start out with, I was impressed with how well Dr. King articulated his thoughts while he was sitting in jail for something that he knew was unjust.  If I would have found myself in this same situation, I do not believe that I would have been nearly as eloquent with my words or writing styles as Dr. King was with his response to the Clergymen.  Dr. King knew that segregation was not only unjust, but it was something that was not going to quietly disappear unless people like him took a stand and stood up for what they believed in.  While I feel as though there were many other people who felt as passionately about ending segregation as he did, I think that a lot of people let their fear hold them back from speaking out against injustice.  Dr. King pointed out in his letter that the “white moderate” was actually doing more harm than the Ku Klux Klan in enabling segregation because these people knew it was wrong yet they did little or nothing in order to help stop it.  

This notion made me think about other issues today that people feel are wrong, but for fear of upsetting someone (family member, friend, etc.) they do not speak up about them.  An example that came to mind derived from the events on September 11, 2001.  Since that day when those horrendous attacks took place on American soil, I feel that many Americans have changed their attitudes toward people from the Middle East.  While “terrorists” are definitely people who we have learned to be wary of, I do not think it is right automatically assign suspicion to anyone who may be of Middle Eastern descent.  Unfortunately, I have personally witnessed this kind of stereotyping against them, especially in airports.  I am not talking about the searches that everyone must comply with—I think those are great and promote safety during our air travel; rather, I am talking about the attitude or conduct change that occurs when people see a person wearing a turban or burka.  The whispers, the stares, or in general just the immediate fear that arises solely based on the color of a person’s skin or articles of clothing that they are wearing is not warranted.  I have witnessed people being downright rude to Middle Eastern people, who were just trying to make their way from A to B, just as we were.  While this is very different from segregation, due to the lack of laws supporting this type of differential treatment, it still presents an ethical issue because this group of people is not being treated justly.  Unfortunately, because of the 9/11 attacks and the ongoing Muslim extremism throughout the world, there is no easy "fix" to this; however, I believe that people should be cognizant of this biased attitude so that they can recognize when they are treating someone in a way that may promote this type of unrecognized segregation.

In class this week we watched the movie “The Dark Night,” which depicted the classic struggle of good and evil as embodied by the struggle between the Batman and Joker.   The Joker continued to put Batman in ethical dilemmas, where he would have to choose the lesser evil.  One significant struggle in the movie came when the Joker took both Harvey and Rachel hostage, and Batman was forced to choose which person he would save because there was no time to save both.  Talk about an ethical dilemma!  This was one of those situations where there was no “right” answer because either decision would have resulted in someone's death.  Our textbook this week focused on corruption, and this movie aligned perfectly with that topic.  The authors, Bowman and West (2015), discussed a “front-page test” that people should consider when making ethical decisions.  If the actions that people are committing right now ended up on the front page of the newspaper tomorrow, would they be okay with this?  When thinking about the actions that the Joker made throughout the movie, the "front-page test" would not seem to be much of a deterrent, especially since he took pleasure in making other people, namely Batman, suffer.  However, for many people, the idea of having their unethical actions publicly displayed on the front page of a newspaper would raise a red flag for them and might help them to reconsider whatever decision they were about to make.  I think this test is a good thing to keep in mind when making questionable decisions because if having a story in the newspaper would bother you, then maybe you should not proceed with your current plan.

Thank you for reading my blog post.  Please leave any comments or questions below.  Have a great week!

References:

Bowman, J. S., and West, J. P. (2015). Public service ethics: Individual and institutional responsibilities.  Thousand Oaks, CA: CQ Press.

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

This week I watched an excellent movie called “The Imitation Game,” which was full of ethical dilemmas!  This movie showed how a team of mathematicians and cryptographers worked together to build the first digital computer in order to break the German’s “Enigma” code during World War II.  To begin with, the team involved with the code had to lie to everyone around them regarding what it was they were working on; they had to lie because otherwise it could have compromised the mission if word had gotten out regarding the progress of cracking the code.  I think that the most significant ethical dilemma in this movie, though, occurred after the code had been broken.  The team made the decision to not prevent an attack from occurring because it would have allowed the Nazis to know that the code had been broken, in which case they would have been able to change it.  One of the teammates had a brother who was going to be killed in the upcoming attack.  The team could have prevented it, though, if they had blown the whistle; however, they were in between a rock and a hard place because this would have blown their cover and could have wasted their years of work to prevent one attack, as opposed to utilizing the information they had gained to slowly but surely win the war without making it obvious how they were obtaining their information.  The young man whose brother was going to be killed in the attack was angry that his teammates did not want to prevent this attack that they very well could prevent.   I believe that he was speaking from emotion, though, as opposed to reason.  As tough of a decision as it would have been, I think that the team made the right call, even though people had to die in the process.  One of the teammates questioned whose right it was to play God and to determine who gets to live and who dies, and this posed a great question; should we ever have that capability to decide which person has to die so that other people may live?  What if it is for the greater good, like it was in this scenario?  Where does one draw the line?  I believe that this poses an ethical dilemma, for sure, because there is no “easy” answer here.

If you have not seen the movie I am referring to, here is the trailer:

In my Ethics in Public Administration course this week, the focus shifted from individual-centered ethical approaches to institutional ethical approaches.  Interestingly enough, though, the same ethics triad that was applied to the individual’s decision-making process last week can also be applied to an organizational approach to ethics (if you did not have a chance to read my blog post from last week, I thoroughly explained this triad there).  Between oaths, creeds, value statements, codes of ethics, and much more, ethical standards are a fundamental component of organizations, whether people realize it or not.  Unfortunately, though, it does not take much to hurt an organization’s reputation because “bad news” tends to spread much quicker than “good news” does.

In a group project this week, my group analyzed the movie “Minority Report” and discussed the ethical dilemmas that arose throughout the movie.  While there were many ethical dilemmas to choose from, the one that stood out the most to me was the notion of giving up the freedoms of a few to benefit the greater majority.  I think that this becomes a “gray area” pretty quickly because it is difficult to determine where exactly the line should be drawn.  Some of my classmates mentioned the events that happened on September 11^th, and how basic freedoms have changed from that specific date.  While security has definitely tightened in many areas, I feel that it has been in the best interest of the American people; therefore, I am not opposed to the changes.  I would be interested to hear what you think about this, though!

Another movie I watched this week was called “Jupiter Ascending,” and the main character, Jupiter, faced a monumental ethical dilemma when she was faced with the decision to either save herself and her family or to save the people on planet Earth.  Ever since I start taking this course on ethics, I have started to notice that ethical dilemmas are seemingly everywhere.  I find it interesting to be able to watch how people make their decisions now, based on thinking back to the ethics triad that I read about in my textbook.  In many cases, it appears as though people do not think about their decisions based on anything other than the immediate emotional response, which can oftentimes lead people to the “wrong” decision.  Throughout this course, I have learned that people need to take time to think about ethical decisions, and refrain from making “snap” judgments.  If you find that you are faced with an ethical issue or ethical dilemma, I would encourage you to take some time to figure out what is the best answer for you and to make sure that you consider multiple aspects, as opposed to just a singular one.  Thank you for visiting my blog!

The Ethics Triad

This week focused on individual approaches to ethics, and we learned about something called the “ethics triad.”  It focused on three different aspects that need to be considered when analyzing an ethical dilemma.  The three aspects are the results-based approach, the duty-based approach, and virtue ethics (Bowman & West, 2015).  When reading about these three schools of thought, it made me realize that I typically make decisions based on one singular aspect, alone, as opposed to thinking through the situation in its entirety; I definitely will be approaching ethical decisions differently now that I have read about these three specific concepts to think through when making a critical decision. Let me give you an example so you understand what I am talking about.  I watched a movie called “The Experiment” this week, which was based on events from the 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment, and this movie left me wondering if this experiment should have ever been conducted.  I question the ethics behind it because while studies, such as this particular one, provided detailed insight into human behavioral aspects, one must consider the cost that was involved in obtaining such information.  If a study leaves residual effects on the people involved, then many people would argue that the study was unethical because it psychologically damaged the participants.  

If you have not see the movie that I am referring to, here is the trailer for it:

I am going to examine this dilemma by utilizing the ethics triad.   Based on the results-approach, a person needs to determine if the decision will benefit the greater good (Bowman & West, 2015).  On one hand, the information obtained from the study can be used to make advances in the psychology field, and it can help researchers understand why people behave the way that they do.  On the other hand, the people involved in the study may regret that they were part of the study because it could reveal aspects about themselves that they may have trouble living with.  Based on the two sides of this coin, I believe that the study would benefit more people than it would harm, so based on the results-approach, the study is acceptable.  Now I will move to the second school of thought: the duty-based approach.  Within this approach, a person must consider if laws were followed when deciding to conduct this study and if it was universally accepted (Bowman & West, 2015).  At the time of the study, I believe that the no laws were broken; however, shortly after this study was conducted, institutional review boards were established in an effort to protect human subjects by subjecting studies to ethical reviews prior to initiation.  I think that prior to the study, the prisoner/guard concept would have been universally accepted; however, after the study is when the questions arose.  Based on the duty-approach considerations in order to conduct the study, I believe that it supports the decision to initiate the experiment.  Based on virtue ethics and how a person of integrity would handle this decision, I believe that a person of integrity would have a difficult time treating innocent people as prisoners and possibly inflicting psychological damage to them in the name of research, despite the fact that the conclusions drawn might be able to help advance the field of psychology.  So based on this school of thought, I do not believe that the decision to conduct this study was an ethical one. 

In order to fully understand how the ethics triad works, one must consider all three schools of thought to see the “bigger picture” and to make the best decision with all of the factors included.  The first two schools of thought indicate that this study was ethical, but the third school of thought raises ethical concerns.  If a person goes with the “majority rules” mentality, then two out of three wins and the answer would be to conduct the study.  However, another approach to handling a situation with the ethics triad would be to only go through with a decision if the answer was a unanimous “yes” to all three approaches; this would leave no room for doubt that the decision was, in fact, ethical.  This is where personal beliefs enter the picture because there is not a strict guideline on how a person should handle a situation like this.  The bottom line is that people need to consider ethical dilemmas from multiple aspects, as opposed to just a singular one, to fully analyze the dilemma at hand.

Now that I have thoroughly explained the ethics triad to you, think back to a decision where you had to make a tough call and could have utilized this triad to help make your decision clearer.  Did you make the right call based on the ethics triad?  Feel free to post your questions or thoughts in the comments section below.  Have a great week, and thank you for visiting my blog! 

                                                                  References:

Bowman, J.S. and West, J. P. (2015).  Public service ethics: Individual and 
        institutional responsibilities. Thousand Oaks, CA: CQ Press.

Monsters and Men

Hello again. Welcome back to my blog! 

I went to see the movie “American Sniper” in the theater this week, and overall I thought it was a great, albeit stressful, movie.  The movie was in English, but it had Korean subtitles because I watched it in South Korea. It was based on a true story, and Bradley Cooper played Chris Kyle, who was a Navy Seal with four tours in Iraq as a sniper.  The movie showed the ethical dilemmas that Chris faced when he was doing his job in Iraq, especially when women and children were the ones who had weapons to be used against the U.S. military.  There was one scene in the movie where a little boy, who could not have been older than seven or eight years old, picked up a rocket propelled grenade (RPG) and attempted to aim it at one of the U.S. military vehicles.  He was very unstable with the RPG; nevertheless, Chris kept his eye on the little boy, but he was praying that the boy would drop the RPG and not force him to take action.  Thankfully the boy did drop it and ran away, leaving Chris to let out a huge sigh of relief because he absolutely did not want to shoot this little boy.  It was obvious by the way that Chris was portrayed that he did not want to kill anyone, and at one point he even said that “the legend,” which is what people referred to him as, was not a good nickname to earn.  He claimed that he did what he had to do in order to protect his men, but the movie did not portray him as ever bragging about his kills in any way.  When talking about ethical issues, killing is almost always one topic that people mention.  Is killing ever morally justified?  Chris Kyle had to make several extremely tough decisions in the scenarios in the movie; had he not taken the shots to stop the enemy, then the enemy would have killed his fellow Americans.  In these scenarios, he was killing defensively, not offensively.  He was killing the people who were on a mission to end the lives of others.  I highly recommend this movie if you have not see it yet, and then I would love to hear what you think about his ethical dilemmas.

This week I also watched a movie called “Changing Lanes” where ethical issues were rampant throughout the movie.  If you have not seen this movie, I recommend that you watch it, as well!  Ben Affleck and Samuel Jackson play the two main characters, and to give a brief summary of the movie, they are at odds with one another over the aftermath of a crash that caused both of their days to tumble in a downward spiral.  This movie shows how deceitful actions can snowball, continuing to grow larger and larger, until the situation is completely out of control.  Anyone who has ever been in a situation like this knows that it is easy to lose sight of which direction is up when you are in a spiral.  I think that watching movies that bring ethical issues to light is a good way that we can reflect on how we would act if we were to ever find ourselves in a similar scenario.

In my graduate course this week we started learning about individual approaches to ethics.  I read in my textbook about two famous experiments, Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment and Milgram’s shock experiment, and Bowman and West (2015) concluded that “evil is done not only by monsters, but at least as frequently by normal people put in terrible circumstances” (p. 66).  This sentence resonated within me because if we lived in a “black and white” world, only monsters would do evil; however, we know that this is not the case because good people sometimes do bad things.  Anyone, when faced with a terrible situation, is capable of engaging in unethical actions.  The key, then, is to try and find ways to avoid these pitfalls.  I think that the main way that a person can attempt to do this is by recognizing that there is an issue in the first place.  Of course there are other steps, as well, but one must first identify the issue in order to take any further actions to fix it.  These topics made me think of the hypothetical question that most of us have been asked at one point or another, which is how a person would behave if they were invisible.  Would that person spy on someone?  Would that person do good deeds for strangers?  Would that person steal money?  The possibilities are endless, but the question remains the same: would an invisible person act ethically, even though nobody is watching?

As always, thank you for visiting my blog.  I will be back again next week!  Please leave any comments or questions that you may have in the section below.

                                                                         
                                                                         References:

Bowman, J.S. and West, J. P. (2015).  Public service ethics: Individual and 
        institutional responsibilities. Thousand Oaks, CA: CQ Press.