WHAT INFLUENCES OUR ETHICAL DECISIONS?
Moral decisions don’t simply come down to a conscious choice to cheat or not. Research has found that certain things consistently influence our choices. In one study, participants were given a numbers task to complete while listening to anxietyinducing music from the movie Psycho. In that situation, people are very likely to exaggerate their performance.
What’s the explanation? Our data suggests that anxiety increases people’s perception of threat, which in turn results in self-interested, unethical behaviour. In threatening situations, our brain shifts