Doing justice to creative justifications: Creativity, Honesty-Humility, and (un)ethical justifications

Karolina Aleksandra Ścigała*, Christoph Schild, Ingo Zettler

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal/Conference contribution in journal/Contribution to newspaperJournal articleResearchpeer-review

14 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Research on the relation between creativity and unethical behavior has provided inconclusive findings, thus far. Herein, we focus on a mechanism that has been suggested as underlying a positive relation between these constructs: an increased ability to generate unethical justifications (i.e., reasons for behaving unethically) of those with high levels of creativity. Specifically, we test if creativity is more strongly related to the generation of unethical than ethical justifications. In a vignette experiment (N = 907, N = 20,719 rated answers), we find that creativity is equally related to the quality and quantity of both ethical and unethical justifications. Additionally, Honesty-Humility from the HEXACO Model of Personality is positively related to the quality of ethical, and negatively related to the quality and quantity of unethical justifications.

Original languageEnglish
Article number104033
JournalJournal of Research in Personality
Volume89
ISSN0092-6566
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Dec 2020
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Creativity
  • Ethical justifications
  • HEXACO
  • Honesty-Humility
  • Unethical justifications

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