When honesty checks-out: Willful ignorance and the persistence of unethical environments

Abstract

This article examines how willful ignorance among (mostly) honest individuals contributes to the persistence and escalation of unethical behavior within certain environments. When individuals choose to avoid morally relevant information, they disengage from situations that would compel ethical action. This disengagement not only permits dishonesty to continue but also drives selection and sorting processes by which ethically flexible individuals are drawn to and retained in ever-more-corrupt environments. Over time, this dynamic cements systemic corruption and makes it more difficult for honest individuals to intervene. The article presents a conceptual framework outlining these self-reinforcing mechanisms and discusses implications for organizational and societal ethics. The framework clarifies why common countermeasures against dishonesty (entry barriers, shaming, or transparency) often backfire. The described self-reinforcing dynamics (where environments shape who enters, and the entrants then solidify the environment) are often overlooked in experimental psychological research, which focuses on emphasizing random assignment over self-selection, sorting, and endogenous-emergence designs.