Luppo Kuillman

Chapter 6 136 Regarding the study performed in Chapter 3 were we assessed whether the level of moral reasoning is a function of the personality meta-traits Stability and Plasticity, and if this is partially explained by the level of moral disengagement the practical implications are two-fold. First, personality is largely stable during the lifespan and therefore besides practicing and/or attending moral case-deliberation sessions, the level of moral reasoning will not be brought to a higher level. Nevertheless, creating and raising awareness is already a very good first step into moral practice. This is especially so because we found that moral disengagement plays a pivotal role in the relationship between the personality meta-trait Stability and the level of moral reasoning. By clearly addressing the danger of detrimental conduct because of (selective) activation of (un)conscious moral disengagement, one may expect that individuals will become more vigilant towards the dark side of ethical decision-making (Welsh, Baer, Sessions, & Garud, 2020). In Chapters 4 and 5, the dependent variables reflected several types of (un)ethical behavior. With respect to the newly introduced construct of ‘reporting reprehensible conduct’ in Chapter 4, we noticed that individuals who attach importance of ethical aspects in care to a high degree only report morally questionable behavior they observe from their colleagues at the time that they perceive a high degree of self-efficacy. With respect to reporting reprehensible conduct, I can imagine that it is absolutely important to introduce such situations already in an early phase of the training program. After all, having a high degree of Ethics Advocacy alone is not enough, one also needs to experience high behavioral control. Furthermore, besides the highly self-perceived behavioral control, it for certain also must mean that someone needs to possess a high degree of moral courage to report the morally questionable behavior of a colleague (Lachman, 2008). Future research may look into reporting reprehensible conduct as a dual processing model where besides Ethics Advocacy also moral courage are assessed as precursors (Watts & Buckley, 2017). With respect to the behavioral variable reflecting the newly introduced phenomenon of ‘yielding to pressure’ in Chapter 5, we have proposed that habituation in simulated-education experiences may protect vulnerable students (read: those who are highly morally deliberate in their attitude) from yielding to pressure. However, as mentioned earlier, in the study, it was found that yielding to pressure depends on the source of pressure. This might create a venue for future research and be re-tested with other vignettes. Another issue worth exploring further is that even though we