The Effects of Moral Intensity and Moral Disengagement on Rule Violations

How Employees Justify Rule Violations 

Overview

The research was conducted in 2021 and 2022 in the United Kingdom, during the Covid-19 pandemic. During this period, most construction workers—who could not work remotely—were subject to health regulations on construction sites. These rules included wearing masks and maintaining social distancing. They came in addition to the usual workplace safety rules set by legislation and by companies in the sector.

The project was supported by three major companies in the construction industry. The 22 interviewees were employees of these three firms and their subcontractors. They held various positions: operators, foremen, managers, and health and safety officers (7).

The first phase of data collection coincided with an intense phase of the pandemic (lockdowns), while the second phase took place after vaccines became available and restrictions were lighter. This made it possible to study behaviors in two different contexts.

The collected data was analyzed through the lens of two key concepts: moral intensity and moral disengagement. 

Moral Intensity

Moral intensity is a subjective characteristic of a situation. It refers to the extent to which a problem, act, or event involves a moral issue, judgment, or action. It is fundamentally a matter of perception: for example, a vegan person may see eating as a highly moral issue, whereas most people perceive it primarily in terms of nutrition, taste, cost, or health. The more people perceive situations as morally intense, the more likely they are to behave ethically — even in the workplace. Beyond individual differences in perception, the characteristics that contribute to moral intensity are not endlessly diverse. Although there is ongoing debate on the matter, two dimensions seem particularly important: the magnitude of potential harm involved, and the existence of social consensus. The greater, more serious, and more widespread the harm, the higher the moral intensity. To illustrate the idea of social consensus, let’s return to the topic of food: today, the moral dimension of eating is not the subject of strong consensus, unlike, for instance, pedophilia, which is universally regarded as a profoundly serious moral issue.

Moral Disengagement

Moral disengagement refers to the cognitive tactics individuals use to bypass the internal barriers to behaviors that are normally considered morally unacceptable. When people contemplate actions that are morally questionable, they are confronted with dissonant feelings such as guilt or the fear of blame. To avoid this, they redefine certain aspects of the situation or the act itself in a way that frees them from moral responsibility. For example, they may invoke a moral justification for the act; shift the responsibility to another agent; minimize or deny the negative consequences of the act; or devalue or dehumanize the potential victim(s). The higher the moral intensity of a situation, the more difficult it becomes to morally disengage.

It is this complex interplay between the perception of moral issues, tactics of moral disengagement, and rule compliance or violation that is examined in detail through real-life situations experienced by construction workers during the Covid-19 pandemic. One of the major contributions of this study is to show that this dynamic does not unfold solely at the individual level. Ethical questions are too often seen as purely personal choices, whereas the collective context plays a major role.

Our Summary

In general, although some injuries were reported — because certain workers chose to carry out dangerous tasks alone rather than risk potentially contaminating contact — conflicts between workplace safety rules and health regulations were typically resolved in favor of the former. As a result, the decisions made did not lead to the kind of ethical compromises one might expect in situations involving conflicting rules. Instead, moral disengagement tactics were widely used to justify violations of health regulations.

Let’s illustrate these various moral disengagement tactics with a few examples. 

Interestingly, workplace safety has supported these tactics with “good” justifications, as seen in the example of masks hindering clear communication. But more broadly, it is the culture of the sector that has been the matrix for various forms of moral disengagement regarding health rules. This is even more true at the level of subcultures or group cultures, which bring together employees from a site, a company, a nationality, and so on. The strength of social consensus within these work subcultures is such that moral issues — and with them personal responsibilities — almost completely dissolve. The ethical approach thus confirms results well established by social psychology and sociology. 

This approach, focused on moral disengagement, also highlights the importance of coherence and alignment in rules and practices. Inconsistencies are exploited as opportunities to weaken moral stakes and justify rule bending or violations. However, companies do not control this coherence: they only govern the workplace. If workplace rules are stricter than the constraints imposed on everyday life, or if the latter evolve more rapidly, individuals find good reasons to disregard the rules at work. What’s the point of distancing yourself from someone you’ll end up chatting with right after leaving the site?

Faced with the complexity of the processes revealed, companies may feel powerless. The authors’ recommendations suggest two complementary approaches. The first relies on simplifying messages. It involves raising the moral intensity related to the issue through communication, training, etc., while supporting this “dramatization” with simple rules for employees to adapt their behavior. This type of approach will surprise no one. However, due to the complexity of disengagement processes, the key role of local subcultures, and the diversity of concrete situations, such a generalized approach cannot suffice. It is also necessary to empower local actors, particularly frontline supervisors, to handle problems as they arise locally. For example, when subgroups adopt a denial posture about the severity of the stakes (see earlier regarding conspiracy attitudes), the “dramatization” strategy will be ineffective. It is impossible to change this posture in the short term. Only the local manager can know how to best communicate with this subgroup to reach the best possible compromise. Similarly, conflicts between rules, which cannot have a general solution, can be managed locally by frontline supervisors who may foster more satisfactory compromises than outright violations.