Culture’s Influence on Ethical Decision Making - An Informational Blog
Making ethical decisions is an important part of life, but the cultural background of individuals can have a huge effect on how they make those decisions. Zheng et al. (2014) conducted an investigation to assess the role of culture in ethical decisions in the field of psychology focusing on the comparison of Chinese with American cultures.The results of this study suggest that culture can significantly impact how ethical decisions are made, and this blog will explore these implications in detail.
The premise of the study was to assess the effects of Chinese and American cultures on consequentialism in decision-making from the perspective of psychologists’ professional responsibilities and roles. It was hypothesized that the level of education would be a factor for both cultures that would affect ethical decision-making process (Zheng et al., 2014). To check the credibility of this hypothesis, the researchers conducted an experiment with 181 participants using 20 ethical scenarios from five distinct fields of psychology. The purpose of the exercise was to determine whether culturally based ethical beliefs had an effect on the decisions made by psychologists.
The research's results demonstrated that there are noteworthy cultural distinctions in the consequentialist approach between American and Chinese participants, which had an effect on the way they handled moral problems. The cultural differences in consequentialism orientation were particularly evident in resolving ethical issues, research, and publication. Additionally, the study found that educational level could significantly affect how ethical decisions were made (Zheng et al., 2014). Specifically, participants at the advanced educational level (the master's level and the Ph.D. level) had weaker rule consequentialism orientation in research and publication but stronger rule consequentialism orientation in resolving ethical issues relative to...
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