BazermanMoore

Bounded Ethicality 127
implicit desires win out. We discount the future, as well as future generations, in ways
inconsistent with our explicit environmental attitudes.
Research documents extremely high discount rates regarding the future
(Bazerman, Wade-Benzoni, & Benzoni, 1996; Loewenstein & Thaler, 1989). Most
homeowners do not sufficiently insulate their attics and walls. They also fail to buy
more expensive, energy-efficient appliances, even when they would recoup the extra
costs in less than a year. Organizations are also guilty of discounting the future. Many
institutions fail to use building materials that would be the most cost-efficient over the
long term, because of a shortsighted concern for immediate costs of construction. Investments
in efficient building materials can pay off handsomely (Ager & Dawes,
1965), yet many institutions seek to minimize the short-term cost of construction, to
the long-term detriment of their maintenance costs and the planet’s scarce resources.
Implicit Attitudes
Most people think of their attitudes, including their attitudes toward various races, as
within the scope of their conscious awareness and under their control. This view is
challenged by research on implicit attitudes, which shows, for instance, that when we
meet someone, our minds automatically activate stereotypes of the race, sex, and age of
that person (Macrae & Bodenhausen, 2001). Even people who believe strongly in egalitarian
values cannot help but have unflattering stereotypes come to mind without conscious
awareness or intent. For example, Bargh, Chen, and Burrows (1996) had
participants in their experiment work on a boring computer task. Meanwhile, the computers
flashed subliminal images of either white or black faces, so quickly that participants
were not consciously aware of them. When the computers ‘‘broke down’’ and
announced that all of the participants’ work had been lost, those who had been shown
black faces responded with significantly more aggression than those shown white faces,
consistent with the common stereotype of African-Americans as aggressive and violent.
The existence of automatic or unconscious attitudes and their effects on our judgments
can place important bounds on the degree to which we can ensure that our own
behavior is consistent with the ethical values we want to express. Again, evidence shows
that human ethicality is bounded. People often provide sincere and strenuous denials
that they intended to behave in ways consistent with negative racial stereotypes. Nevertheless,
their explicit intentions are contradicted by the implications of their actions.
Research by Jennifer Richeson and her colleagues shows that Americans of
European ancestry are often less comfortable in their interactions with Americans of
African ancestry than with Americans of European ancestry (Richeson & Shelton,
2005; Shelton, Richeson, & Vorauer, 2006). While those of European ancestry do not
intend to behave poorly toward African-Americans, they sometimes display clear psychological
signals of discomfort. Indeed, those people whose automatically activated
stereotypes are the most negative suffer most in interracial interactions (Richeson &
Trawalter, 2005). In fact, the hard work of suppressing their negative racial stereotypes
produces measurable cognitive impairments on other tasks (Richeson & Shelton, 2003).
Psychologists have developed a useful tool for examining our implicit attitudes regarding
race, gender, and other human differences that are weighted with stereotypes: