Fall Reading: Out of Character

I don't talk much in this blog or in my book Local Government Ethics Programs about character. However, there is another approach to government ethics that is sometimes referred to as "the character approach." For example, the Josephson Institute trains local officials on the six pillars of character. There are ethics codes, too, that take a character approach to government ethics.

There are many reasons I have ignored the character approach, which I set forth in two short paragraphs in my book (see the end of this post). Reading the book Out of Character by David DeSteno and Piercarlo Valdesolo (Crown Archetype, 2011) gave me more reasons to reject this approach.

The authors' basic argument is that the way we view character is fundamentally wrong. It is not the stable thing we think it is, formed at an early age and continuing throughout our lives, so that there are people of integrity and people without integrity. This view of character is important to people when they make judgments about trusting others, but it is inaccurate.

DeSteno and Valdesolo have found, through their and others' experiments, that "there lurks in every one of us the potential to lie, cheat, steal, and sin, no matter how good a person we believe ourselves to be." They see character as a fluctuating trait, a balance between competing psychological mechanisms. "Character unfolds over time, but not in a slow or linear way. ... it's constantly oscillating to adjust to our needs, situations, and priorities."

We all think that generosity and kindness are signs of a good character, but these qualities can be taken too far, to the point where they can harm us. Therefore, we balance our self-interest against our kindness all the time. The result is different conduct at different times in different situations. One time we respond to a charitable solicitation, another time we don't. One time we report ethical misconduct, another time we don't.

Even self-interest is far from simple. The authors use the metaphor of the ant and the grasshopper. The ant is that part of us that emphasizes our long-term interest, the grasshopper that part of us that emphasizes our short-term interest. Those who focus on character tend to prefer the ant to the grasshopper, but it is the ant that worries about how speaking up about ethical misconduct might affect our career, our family, our friendships. These concerns enable ethical misconduct in government. And it is the grasshopper that wants us to be a hero by blowing the whistle. Emphasizing the ant's long-term focus is no better than emphasizing the grasshopper's focus on immediate self-gratification.

The ant-grasshopper situation is complicated by our tendency to underestimate the value of future vs. immediate gains. This helps the grasshopper dominate. But we also tend to fear taking risks, which helps the ant.

What we need to do is not make character simplistic, but learn to recognize how complex it is, and how hard it is for us to act responsibly with respect to our self-interest, or what others perceive as our self-interest, without the input of a neutral and knowledgeable individual. Character is simply too complex to be seen as something that defines an individual.

External Effects
Besides these internal processes, there are external situations and pressures that affect how we act. This is where the authors' experiments come in. They have shown how even the most minor cues and situations can affect how ethically we act.

One experiment involved the use of reason, which most people consider superior to emotion. For example, we greatly value having the willpower to think through a situation and not act unethically. The authors argue that, in fact, our emotions are sometimes better and more trustworthy than our reason, which can justify just about anything. They came up with a clever experiment in which, by keeping participants busy memorizing a string of numbers, the participants were unable to rationalize acting unfairly toward another participant. The act of memorizing changed how they viewed their unfair conduct toward the other participant. And how one views one's conduct is the first step toward dealing with it responsibly.

Another experiment involved the classic trolley problem, deciding whether one would push a heavy man onto trolley tracks to save the lives of five other people. Showing participants a comedy skit made them three times as likely to say they'd push the man onto the tracks to save the others' lives. The participants' buoyant feelings overwhelmed their instinctual aversion to harming someone in any situation. The authors conclude that "we all unwittingly use our emotional states as information, or cues, to guide our decisions about what's likely to happen or what we should do."

This is something our usual concept of character does not account for. When character is seen to involve balance rather than a steady state, we can see how vulnerable we are to suggestion and manipulation. This is where Out of Character intersects with what I've written about the effect of situational forces in government organizations (also known as an organization's ethics environment) on how each individual handles conflict situations, theirs and others'.

Is it hopeless then? No. We can learn to recognize bias and situational forces, and institute ways to limit them (my book is full of them). We can learn to recognize our limitations (humility helps) and to accept the fact that we are not good people, but rather people who mean to do well and yet are not always sure what is the best way to handle a situation. With respect to government ethics, we can learn to ask for advice about how to handle conflict situations, so that we can get a neutral, professional viewpoint.

Gratitude
Another area the authors of Out of Character focus on is gratitude, an issue I touched on in a blog post about Lewis Hyde's classic book The Gift. The authors show how powerful gratitude is. In experiments they have done, not only are people who feel grateful to someone more likely to help that person, but people who are grateful for something someone has just done for them are also more likely to help a stranger.

When politicians say, "I can't be bought" or "A lunch isn't going to make any difference with me," they are simply wrong. A smile or a compliment is enough, as is making a call for someone's child, speaking in favor of one's motion. You know those nickels and greeting cards they put in charitable solicitations? They're enough to get millions of people to open up their wallets.

No one has a good enough character to fend off gratitude. And why would anyone want to? It's one of the things that keeps families and communities together.

But gratitude has its place. Certain kinds of gratitude cannot be kept out of government affairs unless people are honest with themselves and others about the power of gratitude. The only way to deal with mutual gift giving is (1) to prohibit officials from participating in matters involving those with whom they have a special relationship, and (2) to prevent the creation of special relationships between officials and those seeking special benefits from government. In other words, strong government ethics rules.

My gratitude can be bought without spending a penny. And so can everyone else's. Once it becomes a sign of poor character to say "I can't be bought," we'll be halfway to instituting government ethics. Responsible officials can start by saying, "My gratitude can be bought." And from there, they can deal responsibly with this wonderful, universal, but sometimes problematic part of everyone's emotional life.

Character and Government Ethics
In my book Local Government Ethics Programs, I wrote about the limitations of considering character with respect to government ethics:

When officials talk about character and personal integrity, they should be reminded (1) that there is no way the public can know what their character is, and (2) that life is not that simple. By their nature, conflicts put officials between a rock and a hard place. In a conflict situation, no one, no matter what his character, can satisfy all his obligations. He is going to have to hurt or disappoint someone. Government ethics takes the position that, with respect to official business, an official has an obligation to the public that overrides the official’s other obligations. This takes the official’s character out of the equation.

An important element of an individual’s response to a conflict situation is the character of the organization in which the individual functions, that is, its ethics environment. The values and unwritten rules of a government organization can make it hard for an official to act responsibly. Or they can make it very easy. A good, comprehensive ethics program that has the full support of most high-level officials makes it hard for an official to misuse his office to help himself or others. A poor ethics environment makes an official feel like a chump if he doesn’t.

Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics

---