Changing Ethically Troublesome Behavior: The Causes, Consequences, and Solutions to Motivated Resistance

Abstract

Ethical dilemmas are common. Just as commonly, however, these motivational conflicts are overlooked or actively avoided in behavioral decision making. Raising awareness of the ethical implications of action can be a powerful route to changing behavior, yet this approach also risks defensive responding and the potential for backfire effects. Current models of behavior change are not well equipped to predict how people respond to behavior change interventions which seek to make salient ethical conflict. Drawing on research in the field of behavioral ethics, I detail why models of behavior change need to account for defensive responding when people are confronted with their own ethical conflict..