tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/being-moral-28130/articlesBeing moral – The Conversation2016-08-24T01:58:36Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/639822016-08-24T01:58:36Z2016-08-24T01:58:36ZPlaying at torture, a not so trivial pursuit<p>From 2003 to 2009, Camp Bucca was a detention facility used by the U.S. military to house prisoners from the Iraq War. <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7561952.stm">As early as 2004</a>, news reports surfaced that the camp was the site of prisoner abuse and torture. Some military experts have linked this abuse and torture to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/11/04/how-an-american-prison-helped-ignite-the-islamic-state/">the formation of the Islamic State, or ISIS, group</a>. </p>
<p>By the end of 2016, gamers might have the chance to step into Camp Bucca and <a href="http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2016/05/26/video-game-featuring-torture-of-prisoners-being-developed-in-pittsburgh/">torture a few detainees of their own</a> virtually, playing a new game under development in Pittsburgh.</p>
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<span class="caption">In ‘Medal of Honor: Allied Assault’ (EA Games, 2002), the first mission is a somber reenactment of the storming of Omaha Beach, in World War II.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.ea.com/medal-of-honor-anniversary/images/b20d1fbf23641210VgnVCM100000ab65140aRCRD">EA Games</a></span>
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<p>War-themed video games are many, varied and successful. Games from the “<a href="https://www.callofduty.com/">Call of Duty</a>” franchise have sold <a href="https://blog.activision.com/t5/Call-of-Duty/Call-of-Duty-Infographic-Over-300-Billion-Grenades-Thrown/ba-p/9909305">more than 175 million copies</a> since 2003. These games are usually focused on fast-paced action or precise strategy, involving game play that might be morally questionable but is usually contextualized as “good guys” fighting “bad guys.” </p>
<p>The “Camp Bucca” game breaks from this, because <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/08/a-video-game-that-lets-you-torture-iraqi-prisoners/493379/">it doesn’t frame the player</a> as one of the “good guys.” It follows a lead set by games such as “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2”: In that game’s “<a href="http://kotaku.com/5931235/the-designer-of-call-of-dutys-no-russian-massacre-wanted-you-to-feel-something">No Russian</a>” campaign, players are asked to brutally massacre an airport full of civilians. The best-selling “Grand Theft Auto V” also features an <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8R73tbJtNA">interactive torture scene</a>. </p>
<p>Does including torture or other human rights violations in video games trivialize the actions? Or might it force us to think more critically about them? To answer this question, we have to understand video games and their connection to moral behaviors.</p>
<h2>(Very) brief history of gaming and moral panics</h2>
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<span class="caption">Players in ‘Death Race’ (Exidy Games, 1976) had to drive over gremlins, killing them.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.ign.com/articles/2008/08/23/death-race">IGN.com</a></span>
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<p>One of the first public debates about <a href="http://gamestudies.org/1201/articles/carly_kocurek">the antisocial impact of video games on players</a> centered around the 1976 release of “Death Race” – an arcade driving game in which players earned points by running over human-like figures called “gremlins.” The fact that “Death Race” required players to use an actual steering wheel and gas pedal magnified the concerns: <a href="http://www.museumofplay.org/blog/chegheads/2012/05/death-race-and-video-game-violence/">Psychiatrist Gerald Driessen suggested that the game amounted to a murder simulator</a>.</p>
<p>Gaming scholar Carly Korucek argues that the public controversy surrounding this game cemented a link in the public mindset between video games and violence – <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=Y-JzCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA28&lpg=PA28&dq=in+%5BDeath+Race%5D,+a+player+takes+the+first+step+to+creating+violence.+The+player+is+no+longer+just+a+spectator.+He%E2%80%99s+an+actor+in+the+process">a debate that has continued</a> with games such as “Mortal Kombat,” “DOOM” and “Grand Theft Auto” providing commentators plenty of fodder. </p>
<p>Yet one of the simplest and most enduring descriptions of video games comes from noted game designer Sid Meier (of “Civilization” fame), who argued that the best ones are “<a href="http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1015756/Interesting">a series of interesting decisions</a>.” One way in which game developers are making games more interesting for players is <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/id/36968970/ns/#.V7tSVZgrJhE">by presenting them with a range of options of varying moral consequence</a>. Some criticize these games <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/black-or-white-making-moral-choices-in-video-games/1100-6240211/">for being too simplistic</a> in how they portray “good” and “evil.” But some studies are starting to show that <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2013.0658">committing moral atrocities in video games can trigger authentic guilt reactions</a>, which might result in causing players to reconsider their decisions, both in the game and in real life.</p>
<h2>Gaming and moral disengagement</h2>
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<span class="caption">The original box art from ‘DOOM.’ (id Software, 1995)</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2016/02/06/nobody-likes-the-terrible-awful-no-good-doom-box-art/">Erik Kain/Forbes.com</a></span>
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<p>On its face, playing games that feature and simulate torture might be incredibly dangerous. Taking a basic interpretation of noted psychologist Albert Bandura’s <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1985-98423-000/">social cognitive theory</a>, many scholars argue that video games encourage players (notably, children) to model the behaviors they perform on-screen. Simply put, scholars such as psychologist and communication researcher L. Rowell Huesmann assert that violent video games are a public health threat <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0018567">because they encourage both short-term and long-term aggression</a>.</p>
<p>Other scholars have argued that playing video games with antisocial messages (usually focused on aggressive actions) encourages players to morally disengage from actions in the real world, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1948550613509286">such as cheating and hostility</a>. Related to this, some have suggested that video games can <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2003.10.005">desensitize players’ reactions to the content</a>, especially after <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15213269.2016.1142382">repeated exposures</a>. </p>
<h2>Gaming and moral reflection</h2>
<p>This paints a rather grim picture of video games featuring antisocial themes. Yet directly linking violent gaming to violent reaction is an oversimplification of what can happen when human players encounter inhuman actions. And some of these findings have been challenged <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1745691615592234">in recent reviews of research</a>.</p>
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<span class="caption">In ‘The Torture Game,’ players are given a human to torture with a variety of weapons.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Screenshot from The Torture Game 2</span></span>
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<p>Game designer and scholar Ian Bogost suggests that video games <a href="http://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/how-to-do-things-with-videogames">have matured past a simple focus on entertainment</a>, and our understanding of gaming uses and effects has to mature as well. One of his more provocative arguments focuses on the role of gaming as a source of disgust and disinterest. </p>
<p>Bogost argues that when players experience games such as “<a href="http://www.silvergames.com/the-torture-game-2">The Torture Game 2</a>,” they are often repulsed by the gruesome violence that typifies human torture. In a sense, <a href="http://onmediatheory.blogspot.com/2012/03/disinterest-as-media-effect.html">this disgust reaction is a pro-social one</a>: It encourages the player to reject rather than embrace the on-screen behavior. A real-world example of Bogost’s claims, the Coney Island “<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/06/arts/design/06wate.html?_r=0">Waterboard Thrill Ride</a>,” an animatronic exhibit demonstrating what waterboarding was really like, operated from June to September of 2008 as activist Steve Powers’ way of showing the harsh realities of a practice that people have often heard about but rarely seen.</p>
<h2>Gaming and moral meaning</h2>
<p>Video games can elicit reactions that are introspective, reflective and somber, <a href="http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1017980/We-Are-Not-Heroes-Contextualizing">especially when players are focused on the increasingly complex narratives in gaming</a>. Unlike film and television, gamers are active <a href="https://www.peterlang.com/view/9781453916292/9781453916292.00010.xml">coauthors of their experiences</a>, and have been shown to <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2012.0235">actively avoid committing moral violations when given the choice</a> – especially if those moral concerns <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15213269.2012.727218">were particularly important to the player</a>. Just as we rarely lambaste Stephen Spielberg’s classic movie “Schindler’s List” for encouraging pogroms, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23808985.2013.11679155">it is inaccurate to assume</a> that the only reaction that players can have to questionable video game content is an antisocial one. </p>
<p>As argued by game designer and writer Walt Williams, <a href="http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1017980/We-Are-Not-Heroes-Contextualizing">not all video games frame the player as a hero</a>. Williams’s own “Spec Ops: The Line” is one such example. In the game (a third-person shooter), the player takes control of Captain Martin Walker as he leads an elite Delta Force through a post-war Dubai under rebel military command. A key narrative mechanic of the game hinges on a series of morally gray decisions that players must make in order to advance the story. </p>
<p>One such decision is the infamous <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-b7TaLjdXMc">“White Phosphorous”</a> episode, in which players are forced to use a chemical weapon on an invading force, only to find out after the fact that the “enemies” were largely civilian refugees under military escort. After using the weapon, <a href="http://66.media.tumblr.com/cbc1e0705be188a399bfc9eff8526e39/tumblr_msszwpGCQm1qi76rpo1_1280.jpg">the player encounters in graphic detail the horrors of chemical warfare</a>, losing the support of his troops and slowly falling into mental decline. Such a game uses intense and interactive violence to decry warfare, rather than celebrate and glorify it. </p>
<h2>What will we learn from playing ‘Camp Bucca’?</h2>
<p>As a way of testing how games affect our feelings, I’ve shown my students “The Torture Game 2” and asked them to view game play from the “White Phosphorous” episode – I keep both games in my office for play as well. At the risk of providing small-sample anecdote as scientific argument, their reactions range from anger to shock to repulsion. Few if any seem to enjoy the content, and most are quick to denounce it. Of course, these are students enrolled in college courses aimed at discussing the complexity of media effects. </p>
<p>We don’t know, for example, if somebody who has less ability or interest in contextualizing the game’s torture might have a different reaction: Someone with very strong and negative opinions toward ISIS might relish the opportunity to torture a terrorist. The Red Cross has even asked game developers to <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2013/10/12/232480753/red-cross-wants-video-games-to-get-real-on-war-crimes">prevent players from violating the Geneva Conventions in video games</a>, or at least to punish such violations. Not to mention, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2014.10.049">an individual with psychopathic tendencies might respond very different to this content</a>.</p>
<p>The context in which a game is played can have an important influence on whether antisocial game content has negative effects. In the case of “Camp Bucca,” the developers seem to be contextualizing torture as a root cause of terrorism, rather than situating it as an achievement or mark of success. In fact, <a href="http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2016/05/26/video-game-featuring-torture-of-prisoners-being-developed-in-pittsburgh/">they point out</a> that their game has a “deliberate message” – even if that message is as simple as encouraging players to Google “Camp Bucca.”</p>
<p><a href="http://remeshed.com/2016/torture-game-even/">Media commentator Amanda Jean wrote that</a> “‘Camp Bucca'’s level of stark, intimate violence and its basis in reality will be a hard pill for many gamers to swallow. For me, I know I won’t be swallowing that pill at all.” Jean is likely right that “Camp Bucca” is hardly an enjoyable game, but as media psychologist Mary Beth Oliver and I discussed, <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/340qvj/science_ama_series_we_are_dr_mary_beth_oliver/">not all games are meant to be enjoyed</a> and not all gamers are motivated by enjoyment. In under 100 years, film evolved from <a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dd/Muybridge_race_horse_animated.gif">technical demonstrations</a> to <a href="http://www.afi.com/100Years/movies.aspx">emotionally gripping and serious storytelling</a>. Game developer Jesse Schell similarly argues that <a href="http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1018026/The-Future-of-Storytelling-How">video games are evolving into a serious storytelling medium</a>. </p>
<p>On this trajectory, games such as “Camp Bucca” might not be a fun pill to swallow, but it could be an incredibly meaningful one for players, albeit a little jagged.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/63982/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicholas Bowman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Does including torture or other human rights violations in video games trivialize the actions? Or might it force us to think more critically about them?Nicholas Bowman, Associate Professor of Communication Studies, West Virginia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/597272016-06-07T10:04:51Z2016-06-07T10:04:51ZWe behave a lot more badly than we remember<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125414/original/image-20160606-13043-1nm51pa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Why do we forget our dishonest actions?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/sclafani/4386592324/in/photolist-7FCr59-aNbsFD-cSDB5-99Wftd-61d2ct-85pA3M-9Gh5SG-5GhQd-dei4BD-a5ia3k-6BZfVV-pXRGG-7gJzX5-xafPC-7dZJtF-dEF2qd-asKYgh-6JqhNP-3KFGXb-egNRs4-iCYJkb-aT6JB2-4FdMfB-3KFFeA-bodcjL-5awETL-bvQRDW-8DEdiz-7t2Mbs-ftLVW-q9t45-ftLXu-pxRq11-egNV7V-oundf8-GBoLse-pc8EM-wj4PDb-9rtvN2-aT6FDF-3KFpJU-5VMLay-3KBdwx-azfTst-ftLWo-egUvUo-egNQ66-egNTRK-egUxf9-egUCaC">Sclafani</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In a 1997 <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=QrCENRx6klUC&pg=PA57&lpg=PA57&dq=U.S.+News+and+World+Report+survey+who+will+go+to+heaven+mother+teresa&source=bl&ots=hwkPMol8pi&sig=lEy0tlvPH1tLm2FFTDo_V_Fy5GY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjlxILI35PNAhXlxYMKHU3EATEQ6AEIJzAC#v=onepage&q=U.S.%20News%20and%20World%20Report%20survey%20who%20will%20go%20to%20heaven%20mother%20teresa&f=false">U.S. News and World Report survey</a>, 1,000 Americans were asked the following question: “Who do you think is most likely to get into heaven?” According to respondents, then-president Bill Clinton had a 52 percent chance; basketball star Michael Jordan had a 65 percent chance; and Mother Teresa had a 79 percent chance. </p>
<p>Guess who topped even Mother Teresa? The people who completed the survey, with a score of 87 percent. Apparently, most of the respondents thought they were better than Mother Teresa in regards to their likelihood of getting into heaven.</p>
<p>As the results of this survey suggest, most of us have a strong desire to view ourselves in a positive light, especially when it comes to honesty. We care very much about being moral. </p>
<p>In fact, psychological <a href="http://static1.squarespace.com/static/55dcde36e4b0df55a96ab220/t/569fafbbd82d5ea920307b0d/1453305787311/Gino+2015+-+Understanding+Ordinary+Unethical+Behavior.pdf">research</a> on morality shows that we hold an overly optimistic view of our capacity to adhere to ethical standards. We believe that we are <a href="http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/08-012.pdf">intrinsically more moral</a> than others, that we will behave more ethically than others in the future and that transgressions committed by others are morally worse than our own. </p>
<p>So, how do these beliefs of our moral selves play out in our day-to-day actions? As researchers who frequently study how people who care about morality often behave dishonestly, we decided to find out.</p>
<h2>Unethical amnesia</h2>
<p>One key result of our <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/113/22/6166.full">research</a> is that people engage in unethical behavior repeatedly over time because their memory of their dishonest actions gets obfuscated over time. In fact, <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/113/22/6166.full">our research shows</a>, people are more likely to forget the details of their own unethical acts as compared to other incidents – including neutral, negative or positive events, as well as the unethical actions of others. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125415/original/image-20160606-13051-29ah0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125415/original/image-20160606-13051-29ah0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125415/original/image-20160606-13051-29ah0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125415/original/image-20160606-13051-29ah0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125415/original/image-20160606-13051-29ah0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125415/original/image-20160606-13051-29ah0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125415/original/image-20160606-13051-29ah0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">What do we forget?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/tomswift/4457197466/in/photolist-7MSiwb-kV33TM-d36gF-rpdW6H-bQv72Z-3eh4RX-6itRpW-fw2hXg-9kSzg-aLrCpv-6oWsHa-cshAj9-f6RFsR-7f3Jx9-dyVKDa-4pAjgo-be296R-inVQi-ojbsDF-7K9ZyD-5rAkSH-8TkXQR-be1PpF-hL2QhR-az8Wki-egsRxT-8ZNv6Y-n9R76T-oHAqed-6cZb53-5bVgq-7nnDPK-nYb8PY-3AsGGg-ehJNHL-avrPfq-8qbxV2-a3DRhw-9qBouj-LF7j9-qKwCJj-nPgkEV-bKa9hP-6Zib1S-ebYpF3-4FbQ3r-75P3DF-bUhkrM-7hViuZ-6LiCoW">Lew (tomswift) Holzman</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We call this tendency “unethical amnesia”: an impairment that occurs over time in our memory for the details of our past unethical behavior. That is, engaging in unethical behavior produces real changes in memory of an experience over time.</p>
<p>Our desire to behave ethically and see ourselves as moral gives us a strong motivation to forget our misdeeds. By experiencing unethical amnesia, we can cope with the psychological distress and discomfort we experience after behaving unethically. Such discomfort has been demonstrated in <a href="http://www-2.rotman.utoronto.ca/facbios/file/Mazar_Dishonesty_forthcomingJMR.pdf">prior research</a>, including <a href="http://static1.squarespace.com/static/55dcde36e4b0df55a96ab220/t/55e872c4e4b051470ecd23b3/1441297092685/Psychological+Science-2015-Gino-983-96.pdf">our own</a>.</p>
<h2>How forgetting works</h2>
<p>We found evidence of unethical amnesia in nine experimental studies we conducted on diverse samples with over 2,100 participants, from undergraduate students to working adults. We conducted these studies between January 2013 and March 2016.</p>
<p>We chose a wide range of populations for our studies to provide a more robust test of our hypotheses and show that unethical amnesia affects not only college students but also employed adults. </p>
<p>In our studies, we examined the vividness and level of detail of people’s memories when they recalled unethical acts as compared with other acts.</p>
<p>For instance, in one of our studies, conducted in 2013, we asked 400 people to recall and write about their past experiences: some people recalled and wrote about their past unethical actions, some about their past ethical actions, and others recalled and wrote about other types of actions not related to morality.</p>
<p>We found that, on average, participants remembered fewer details of their actions and had less vivid memories of unethical behaviors as compared to ethical behaviors or positive or negative (but not unethical) actions.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125418/original/image-20160606-13045-3xwew9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125418/original/image-20160606-13045-3xwew9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125418/original/image-20160606-13045-3xwew9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125418/original/image-20160606-13045-3xwew9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125418/original/image-20160606-13045-3xwew9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125418/original/image-20160606-13045-3xwew9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125418/original/image-20160606-13045-3xwew9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">We have less vivid memories of unethical behavior.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/s/remember/search.html?page=2&thumb_size=mosaic&inline=412619059">Brain image via www.shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In follow-up studies conducted either in the laboratory at a university in the northeast United States or online in 2014 and 2015, we gave people the opportunity to cheat on a task. A few days later, we asked them to recall the details of the task. </p>
<p>For instance, in one study, we gave 70 participants the opportunity to cheat in a dice-throwing game by misreporting their performance. If they did, they would earn more money. So, they had an incentive to cheat.</p>
<p>When we assessed their memory a few days later, we found that participants who cheated had less clear, less vivid and less detailed memories of their actions than those who did not.</p>
<h2>Why does it matter?</h2>
<p>Is having a less vivid memory of our misdeeds such a big problem? As it turns out, it is. </p>
<p>When we experience unethical amnesia, our research further shows, we become more likely to cheat again. In two of the studies we conducted out of the nine included in our <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/113/22/6166.full">research</a>, we gave over 600 participants an opportunity to cheat and misreport their performance for extra money.</p>
<p>A few days later, we gave them another chance to do so. The initial cheating resulted in unethical amnesia, which drove additional dishonest behavior on the task that participants completed a few days later.</p>
<p>Because we often feel guilty and remorseful about our unethical behavior, we might expect that these negative emotions would stop us from continuing to act unethically. </p>
<p>But we know that is not so. Our experiences and news headlines from across the globe suggest that <a href="http://static1.squarespace.com/static/55dcde36e4b0df55a96ab220/t/55eef24de4b067774289457d/1441722957978/REVISE+-+R2.pdf">dishonesty is a widespread and common phenomenon</a>.</p>
<p>Our work points to a possible reason for persistent dishonesty: we tend to forget our unethical actions, remembering them less clearly than memories of other types of behaviors.</p>
<p>So, what if people actively pursued scheduled time to reflect on their daily acts? In our research we showed that unethical amnesia most likely happens because people limit the retrieval of unwanted memories about when they engaged in dishonesty. As a result, these memories are obfuscated. </p>
<p>Perhaps creating a habit of self-reflection could help people keep such memories alive and also learn from them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/59727/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>We come across dishonest acts in our day-to-day lives. Perhaps we commit them as well. But, guess what? Most of us care so much about being moral that we tend to forget our unethical behavior.Francesca Gino, Professor of Business Administration, Harvard UniversityMaryam Kouchaki, Assistant Professor of Management and Organizations, Northwestern UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.