Isaac H. Smith

The Morning Morality Effect: The Influence of Time of Day on Unethical Behavior

Are people more moral in the morning than in the afternoon? We propose that the normal, unremarkable experiences associated with everyday living can deplete one’s capacity to resist moral temptations. In a series of four experiments, both undergraduate students and a sample of U.S. adults engaged in less unethical behavior (e.g., less lying and cheating) on tasks performed in the morning than on the same tasks performed in the afternoon. This morning morality effect was mediated by decreases in moral awareness and self-control in the afternoon. Furthermore, the effect of time of day on unethical behavior was found to be stronger for people with a lower propensity to morally disengage. These findings highlight a simple yet pervasive factor (i.e., the time of day) that has important implications for moral behavior.

The Moral Ties That Bind . . . Even to Out-Groups The Interactive Effect of Moral Identity and the Binding Moral Foundations

Throughout history, principles such as obedience, loyalty, and purity have been instrumental in binding people together and helping them thrive as groups, tribes, and nations. However, these same principles have also led to in-group favoritism, war, and even genocide. Does adhering to the binding moral foundations that underlie such principles unavoidably lead to the derogation of out-group members? We demonstrated that for people with a strong moral identity, the answer is “no,” because they are more likely than those with a weak moral identity to extend moral concern to people belonging to a perceived out-group. Across three studies, strongly endorsing the binding moral foundations indeed predicted support for the torture of out-group members (Studies 1a and 1b) and withholding of necessary help from out-group members (Study 2), but this relationship was attenuated among participants who also had a strong moral identity.

Exploring Entrepreneurial Cognition in Franchisees: A Knowledge‐Structure Approach

Franchisees participate in new business creation uniquely, because, in many respects, the development of their ventures is under the direction of franchisors. In this study, using entrepreneurial scripts, we compare the extent to which franchisee venturing is similar to and/or distinct from individual–based entrepreneurship in nonfranchise new ventures. We therefore examined the entrepreneurial scripts of individuals in a purposeful sample of 54 franchisees compared to two counterpart groups: 54 independent entrepreneurs and 94 managers (neither franchisee nor entrepreneur). Using MANCOVA and follow–up tests we find that franchisees are less like entrepreneurs and more similar to nonentrepreneur managers.

Molecular insights into chronotype and time-of-day effects on decision-making

Recent reports highlight that human decision-making is influenced by the time of day and whether one is a morning or evening person (i.e., chronotype). Here, we test whether these behavioral effects are associated with endogenous biological rhythms. We asked participants to complete two well-established decision-making tasks in the morning or evening: the matrix task (an ethical decision task) and the balloon analog risk task (BART; a risk-taking task), and we measured their chronotype in two ways. First, participants completed a self-report measure, the Horne-Östberg Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire (MEQ). Second, we measured the expression of two circadian clock-regulated genes—Per3 and Nr1d2—from peripheral clock cells in participants’ hair follicle samples. Using a cosinor model, we estimated the phase of the peripheral clock and assigned RNA chronotypes to participants with advanced (larks) or delayed (owls) phases. The behavioral data were analyzed independently for self-reported (MEQ) and RNA-based chronotypes. We find that significant chronotype and/or time-of-day effects between larks and owls in decision-making tasks occur only in RNA-based chronotypes. Our results provide evidence that time-of-day effects on decision-making can be explained by phase differences in oscillating clock genes and suggest that variation in the molecular clockwork may influence inter-individual differences in decision-making behavior.

Social Innovation Through Development Franchising: Compensating for a Lack of Entrepreneurial Expertise and Connecting to Formal Supply Chains

Promoting entrepreneurship through microenterprise has become a popular strategy for poverty alleviation and economic development. However, not all would-be entrepreneurs have the necessary skills and expertise to succeed in new venture creation. Furthermore, microenterprises often function within the confines of the informal economy, with limited access to formal supply chains. As one potential solution for overcoming these two major challenges, we propose that development franchising – franchising that begins at a micro scale in developing economies – can be employed as a social innovation. Regarding entrepreneurial expertise, recent research has shown that franchisees in the United States more closely resemble non-entrepreneurs than entrepreneurial experts, implying that the franchise business model may compensate for a franchisee’s lack of entrepreneurial expertise. In a development context, franchising can also serve as an effective means of helping subsistence entrepreneurs access formal supply chains – increasing opportunities for scaling, growth, and further job creation. Two case examples illustrate the potential of development franchising in overcoming some of the major challenges faced by traditional microenterprise strategies.

Not All Fairness Is Created Equal: Fairness Perceptions of Group vs. Individual Decision Makers

Drawing on fairness heuristic theory and literature on negative group schemas, we develop and empirically test the idea that, given the exact same decision outcome, people perceive groups to be less fair than individuals when they receive a decision outcome that is unfavorable, but not when they receive one that is favorable or neutral Studies 1 and 2. To account for this difference in fairness perceptions following an unfavorable outcome, we show that the mere presence of a group as a decision-making body serves as a cue that increases the accessibility of negative group-related associations in a perceivers mind Study 3. Moreover, in a sample of recently laid-off workers-representing a broad range of organizations and demographic characteristics-we demonstrate that those who received a layoff decision made by a group of decision makers versus an individual are marginally more likely to perceive the decision as unfair and are marginally less likely to endorse the organization Study 4. Taken together, the results of all four studies suggest that, in response to the same unfavorable decision outcome, a group of decision makers is often perceived to be less fair than an individual.

Does the Morning Morality Effect Hold True Only for Morning People

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Does deciding among morally relevant options feel like making a choice? How morality constrains people’s sense of choice.

We demonstrate that a difference exists between objectively having and psychologically perceiving multiple-choice options of a given decision, showing that morality serves as a constraint on people’s perceptions of choice. Across 8 studies (N = 2,217), using both experimental and correlational methods, we find that people deciding among options they view as moral in nature experience a lower sense of choice than people deciding among the same options but who do not view them as morally relevant. Moreover, this lower sense of choice is evident in people’s attentional patterns. When deciding among morally relevant options displayed on a computer screen, people devote less visual attention to the option that they ultimately reject, suggesting that when they perceive that there is a morally correct option, they are less likely to even consider immoral options as viable alternatives in their decision-making process. Furthermore, we find that experiencing a lower sense of choice because of moral considerations can have downstream behavioral consequences: after deciding among moral (but not nonmoral) options, people (in Western cultures) tend to choose more variety in an unrelated task, likely because choosing more variety helps them reassert their sense of choice. Taken together, our findings suggest that morality is an important factor that constrains people’s perceptions of choice, creating a disjunction between objectively having a choice and subjectively perceiving that one has a choice.

The Behavioral Ethics of Deontology and Utilitarianism: Are They as Separable as They Seem?

Decisions with ethical implications are an everyday part of individual and organizational life. To understand how such decisions are made, scholars have often relied on two philosophical perspectiv...