Officials suppress their own suspicions to avoid confronting systemic abuse.

Evidence

Earlier, a mother had filed a complaint with the university police that her son was molested by Sandusky. The handling of this allegation was another exercise in collective self-deception. Vice President Gary Schultz, who was in charge of the campus police, had an inkling that the complaint might signify a broader abuse problem. In a note he wrote to himself, “[I]s this opening of Pandora’s box? Other children?” (Belson, 2012). — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 573

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The self-addressed question — Pandora’s box? Other children? — shows someone already suspecting harm choosing not to pursue, an active turning-away rather than genuine ignorance.
• QUESTION: Bandura seems to treat this as suppression; is there psychological work on the felt cost of opening such questions that explains reluctance to look?
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 573