Ethical Obligations and Decision-Making in Accounting: Text and Cases 4th Edition by Steven Mintz,Roselyn Morris

Exercise 4

One reason otherwise good people may do bad things is what psychologists call scripts. This term refers to the procedures that experience tells us to use in specific situations. Unlike other forms of experience, scripts are stored in memory in a mechanical or rote fashion. Explain why a System 1 approach to decision making might create a script that leads us to make a questionable or unethical decision.