Organizational honor can outweigh factual innocence in institutional decision-making

Evidence

At some point the “face” or honor of the organization becomes committed to the concealment and the processes of denying that real harms were done or real wrongs perpetrated. For those versed in history, the Dreyfus affair comes to mind. An individual was falsely convicted of treason on rather flimsy evidence. This became apparent and when considerable new evidence pointing to Dreyfus’s innocence had accumulated, a new trial was finally ordered. The original conviction was affirmed. A more likely candidate for the treasonous act was later tried, and although the evidence was better that he had committed the crime, he was acquitted. Why? Because those doing the retrospective reviewing feared that to reverse the verdict would be to dishonor the military or admit to national disgrace. And they were right. To do it would have dishonored the military justice system and the French government. So they chose a path that further dishonored and discredited the system. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 4016

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Goffman’s face-work and to the broader literature on reputational maintenance overriding truth, as in Milgrom’s reputation systems.
• CANDY: The Dreyfus affair distilled to one piercing paragraph — the French military kept a knowingly false conviction solely to protect its honor, then lost more honor anyway.