Perpetrators deflect systemic wrongdoing onto isolated bad apples

Evidence

In response to the Boesky case, some young traders shifted the blame to isolated “bad apples.” “It’s like knowing someone with cancer. You feel it for awhile. But say to yourself, ‘Hey, it’s not me,’ and you go on” (Martz, Powell, McCormick, Thomas, & Starr, 1986). Given the excesses on Wall Street, some of the elders in the business viewed the blurring of the line between right and wrong as pervasive. As one of the elders put it, “The ‘bad apples’ speeches are crap.” — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1431

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘bad apples’ displacement mechanism parallels vault claims about how individuals distance themselves from systemic complicity in harmful policy.
• SEED: Essay angle on how ‘few bad apples’ framing functions as collective moral disengagement — the elders’ rebuttal shows insiders recognizing it as such.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 1431