Ignoring or discrediting harm evidence disables self-censure and motivates no change
Evidence
When people pursue activities that serve their interests but produce detrimental effects, they avoid facing the harm they cause, or they minimize it. If minimization does not work, they can discredit scientific evidence of harm, generating doubt and controversy despite substantial evidence to the contrary. As long as one ignores, minimizes, or discredits the evidence of the harmful results of one’s conduct, one has few reasons to activate self-censure or any need to change behavioral practices. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2721
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
Related
- Ignoring, minimizing, or discrediting evidence of harm preemptively disables moral self-censure. (similarity 0.96)
- Disengaging self-sanctions requires contesting evidence of harm rather than denying the act (similarity 0.89)
- Disputing evidence of harm blocks self-censure, driving credibility battles (similarity 0.88)
- Actors minimize harm more when acting alone and cannot evade responsibility (similarity 0.84)
- Self-contempt is the core psychological cost driving people to rationalize (similarity 0.83)
- Keeping harm out of sight enables genuine belief in one’s innocence (similarity 0.83)
- Ignorance of harm makes self-deception morally possible (similarity 0.82)
- Industries neutralize moral concerns by disputing evidence of harm rather than changing practices (similarity 0.82)
- Self-contempt is the most devastating consequence of moral conflict (similarity 0.82)
- Explaining cruelty’s mechanisms does not excuse it (similarity 0.81)
- Criminals must preserve self-respect by sanitizing and deflecting blame for misconduct. (similarity 0.80)
- Moral self-censure strength depends on how perpetrators regard their victims. (similarity 0.80)
- Denying that one’s product causes harm removes the basis for any blame (similarity 0.79)
- Diffused responsibility makes people act more cruelly than individual accountability (similarity 0.79)
- Sanctified harm defuses anticipatory guilt and even converts pride into reward. (similarity 0.78)