Evaluation of Statement Accuracy on Ethical Decision-Making

The purpose of this study was to examine how different ethical scenarios and different likelihood of statement accuracy influenced recommendations to seek more information or report an ethical violation. Twenty participants were recruited to participate in a pre-workshop survey where they were presented with five hypothetical ethical scenarios that each corresponded to one of five probabilities that scenario was accurate (100%, 60%, 40%, 20%, and 10%). We found when given a scenario that was 100% accurate, 17 of 20 participants indicated they would advise the individual to report the ethical violation. As report accuracy decreased, the proportion of participants that advised to report also decreased. Future directions and implications for ethical decision making in research and practice are discussed.