Nicole Witt

AI decision assistants are entering domains where moral judgments matter, yet their effects on ethical choices remain poorly understood. In a preregistered multi-wave experiment, participants faced repeated ethical dilemmas with or without an AI assistant that scaffolded reflection without recommending actions. AI assistance increased decision confidence (Cohen's d = 0.40) more strongly than it increased ethical choices (d = 0.21), creating a confidence trap. The pattern persisted when controlling for choice improvements (residualized d = 0.36), and deeper reflection predicted choices but not confidence, consistent with confidence responding to the procedure rather than its content. Effects were strongest among morally motivated participants. These findings indicate an AI governance risk: decision support may inflate users' confidence more reliably than it improves stated-choice quality, and evaluations should not treat user confidence as evidence of effectiveness.

Unethical behavior, deception, and fraud are major concerns in corporate governance. This paper examines the effectiveness of contemplation questions (CQs) as ethical decision aids intended to activate moral agency and prompt employees to consider their actions from various perspectives (e.g., self, peers, company). Although we find that 44% of S&P 200 and Fortune Global 200 companies use CQs, their behavioral impact is not well understood. Using two preregistered, incentivized vignette experiments, we show that the effects of CQs depend critically on the level of engagement they require. In Study 1 (N = 1,986), where participants were only passively presented with CQs, we find no impact on ethical decisions, either in the aggregate or by reference group. In Study 2 (N = 1,322), where participants were actively engaged by answering CQs, we again find no overall effect, but uncover a striking heterogeneity: CQs marginally increase ethical decisions among individuals with high moral identity, yet significantly reduce such decisions among those with low moral identity. These findings align with a conceptual framework of motivated moral reasoning and suggest that while CQs can benefit some individuals, they may backfire precisely among those predisposed to unethical behavior.

In the battle against unethical behavior in organizations, fostering employees' moral courage proves vital beyond conventional regulation and compliance efforts. To propel this frontier and empower individuals to uphold moral values, a robust measure of workplace moral courage becomes imperative. This paper introduces the Workplace Moral Courage Scale (WMCS), which, unlike previous measures, stands out by capturing the diverse ways in which moral courage can manifest in workplace settings. Building on data from two diverse German employee samples (total N = 995), we unveil five distinct factors: challenging colleague and supervisor misconduct, opposing unethical orders, confessing mistakes, and initiating positive changes. The WMCS exhibits good psychometric properties and convergent and discriminant validity. Confirming its concurrent validity, the WMCS effectively predicts various forms of employee silence, even after controlling for organizational influences. The paper concludes with a discussion of the results and implications of the WMCS.