Luppo Kuillman

Chapter 1 18 definition of Cohen et al, namely: “moral character can be viewed as individual’s characteristic patterns of thought, emotion, and behavior associated with moral/ ethical and immoral/unethical behavior” (Cohen, Panter, Turan, Morse, & Kim, 2014). For this in Chapter 3 of this doctoral thesis we at first tested whether the higher- order personality traits ‘Stability’ and Plasticity (based on the Big Five Personality traits) as proposed by DeYoung et al. are explanatory variables towards the level of moral reasoning (DeYoung, 2006). Second, regarding the behavioral aspect of moral character we introduced in both the studies of which is being reported in Chapter 4 as also in Chapter 5, two different scripts of (un)ethical conduct to assess the behavioral aspect of the fourth component of the FCM. Whereas in Chapter 4 we reported about a vignette-based indicator that reflects a newly introduced concept of ‘reporting reprehensible conduct’, in Chapter 5 we have opted to construct vignettes that has built in the stimulus of the propensity of ‘yielding to pressure’. Regarding ‘reporting reprehensible conduct’ respondents were asked to identify the likeliness of reporting morally questionable behavior they observed among colleagues. This was assessed in relationship with the concept of Ethics Advocacy and behavioral control targeted at preventing harm. With this type of (un)ethical conduct we intended to develop a healthcare context-specific indicator for whistleblowing. This can be seen as a judgement of morality outside the self, whilst upholding the own moral standards, once the act involved reporting that morally reprehensible behavior. With the vignettes that measured the tendency of yielding to pressure we constructed the vignettes in such a way that the (un)ethical conduct immediately addresses the own moral self. 1.4 Moral disengagement: theory and measurement. During recent years behavioral ethics research tends to focus on non-deliberate processes that might contribute in explaining (un)ethical conduct (Moore & Gino, 2015). Explorations are set out to the unconscious processes such as intuition and emotion being at the interplay of unethical conduct (Schwartz, 2016). In that, it is Albert Bandura who already also stressed that there is much more involved in the process that regulates the human conduct regarding solving moral dilemmas than only the underlying psychological processes as assumed in the rationalist-based approach of the FCM. For example, in Bandura’s social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1986; Bandura, 1991) it is suggested that moral reasoning may lead to action, but that this is only possible through self-regulation rooted in one’s own moral