Senior leaders took part, so the bad apples excuse is implausible
Evidence
The misleading mea culpa conveys the impression that a few rogue lower-ranking officials operating under faulty radar autonomously changed the APA code of ethics. The undetected “bad apples” exoneration was implausible because senior staff members and leaders presided over the ethics revision and its expedited adoption as official policy. Collective willful blindness weakens or eliminates moral restraints over detrimental practices. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2384
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
- XREF: The ‘bad apples’ exoneration pattern connects to the moral disengagement mechanisms (diffusion of responsibility, displacement of responsibility) Bandura develops throughout this book, and to the Hannah Arendt-style banality of evil literature on institutional complicity.