By Adam Turteltaub

Professors Guido Palazzo and Ulrich Hoffrage are skeptical. When they hear that there was a bad apple at the core of a scandal, they are hesitant to accept that explanation. Instead, they argue in this podcast and in their new book, The Dark Pattern: The Hidden Dynamics of Corporate Scandals, that the problem is typically much deeper and wider.

There are dark patterns, as they call them, that lead to bad behavior. Underlying the patterns are nine building blocks.  They explain:

Rigid ideology is a shared belief system that narrows the view of decision-makers at the expense of other views, risking them losing sight of ethical dimensions.

Toxic leadership can create fearful contexts when narcissistic, Machiavellian, or psychopathic leaders abuse their power and cause harm, be it through direct orders, leading by example, or a carrot- and- stick approach.

Manipulative language restricts how things are perceived and evaluated, influencing people’s judgments, decisions, and behaviors in ways that contribute to evil.

Corrupting goals and unrealistic targets divert people’s attention so that they lose the ability to see the bigger picture in which their decisions are embedded— and the ethical dimension of their behavior.

Destructive incentives create a tunnel vision of reality and lead to unhealthy competition and fights.

Ambiguous rules create a gray area where people at best are confused and at worst can morally disengage when they do something bad because, after all, they were just following the rules.

Perceived unfairness can lead people to engage in illegal practices while feeling that they are restoring justice.

Dangerous groups may force individuals to conform, encourage aggression against members of out- groups, or pressure those who are considering speaking up not to do so.

Finally, people who are on a slippery slope may not realize how they are straying from the right path to the point of escalating their commitment to evil things without even realizing how they have changed.

While there are ways to manage for these risk areas, the challenge is that they are too often missed.

The solution they advocate for includes compliance teams educating themselves more in areas such as social psychology so that they are more attuned to the human factors.

Within the office there is a need for companies to resist the need to move on from scandals and to instead engage in deeper soul searching to understand what went wrong and why.

Finally, they are advocates for making ethics a much more important part of compliance programs.

Listen in to better understand what dark patterns are and how to keep them from taking hold of your organization.

Listen now

Sponsored by Case IQ, a global provider of whistleblowing, case management, and compliance solutions.