case study on individual behaviour

Psychology Case Study Examples: A Deep Dive into Real-life Scenarios

Peeling back the layers of the human mind is no easy task, but psychology case studies can help us do just that. Through these detailed analyses, we’re able to gain a deeper understanding of human behavior, emotions, and cognitive processes. I’ve always found it fascinating how a single person’s experience can shed light on broader psychological principles.

Over the years, psychologists have conducted numerous case studies—each with their own unique insights and implications. These investigations range from Phineas Gage’s accidental lobotomy to Genie Wiley’s tragic tale of isolation. Such examples not only enlighten us about specific disorders or occurrences but also continue to shape our overall understanding of psychology .

As we delve into some noteworthy examples , I assure you’ll appreciate how varied and intricate the field of psychology truly is. Whether you’re a budding psychologist or simply an eager learner, brace yourself for an intriguing exploration into the intricacies of the human psyche.

Understanding Psychology Case Studies

Diving headfirst into the world of psychology, it’s easy to come upon a valuable tool used by psychologists and researchers alike – case studies. I’m here to shed some light on these fascinating tools.

Psychology case studies, for those unfamiliar with them, are in-depth investigations carried out to gain a profound understanding of the subject – whether it’s an individual, group or phenomenon. They’re powerful because they provide detailed insights that other research methods might miss.

Let me share a few examples to clarify this concept further:

• One notable example is Freud’s study on Little Hans. This case study explored a 5-year-old boy’s fear of horses and related it back to Freud’s theories about psychosexual stages.
• Another classic example is Genie Wiley (a pseudonym), a feral child who was subjected to severe social isolation during her early years. Her heartbreaking story provided invaluable insights into language acquisition and critical periods in development.

You see, what sets psychology case studies apart is their focus on the ‘why’ and ‘how’. While surveys or experiments might tell us ‘what’, they often don’t dig deep enough into the inner workings behind human behavior.

It’s important though not to take these psychology case studies at face value. As enlightening as they can be, we must remember that they usually focus on one specific instance or individual. Thus, generalizing findings from single-case studies should be done cautiously.

To illustrate my point using numbers: let’s say we have 1 million people suffering from condition X worldwide; if only 20 unique cases have been studied so far (which would be quite typical for rare conditions), then our understanding is based on just 0.002% of the total cases! That’s why multiple sources and types of research are vital when trying to understand complex psychological phenomena fully.

In the grand scheme of things, psychology case studies are just one piece of the puzzle – albeit an essential one. They provide rich, detailed data that can form the foundation for further research and understanding. As we delve deeper into this fascinating field, it’s crucial to appreciate all the tools at our disposal – from surveys and experiments to these insightful case studies.

Importance of Case Studies in Psychology

I’ve always been fascinated by the human mind, and if you’re here, I bet you are too. Let’s dive right into why case studies play such a pivotal role in psychology.

One of the key reasons they matter so much is because they provide detailed insights into specific psychological phenomena. Unlike other research methods that might use large samples but only offer surface-level findings, case studies allow us to study complex behaviors, disorders, and even treatments at an intimate level. They often serve as a catalyst for new theories or help refine existing ones.

To illustrate this point, let’s look at one of psychology’s most famous case studies – Phineas Gage. He was a railroad construction foreman who survived a severe brain injury when an iron rod shot through his skull during an explosion in 1848. The dramatic personality changes he experienced after his accident led to significant advancements in our understanding of the brain’s role in personality and behavior.

Moreover, it’s worth noting that some rare conditions can only be studied through individual cases due to their uncommon nature. For instance, consider Genie Wiley – a girl discovered at age 13 having spent most of her life locked away from society by her parents. Her tragic story gave psychologists valuable insights into language acquisition and critical periods for learning.

Finally yet importantly, case studies also have practical applications for clinicians and therapists. Studying real-life examples can inform treatment plans and provide guidance on how theoretical concepts might apply to actual client situations.

• Detailed insights: Case studies offer comprehensive views on specific psychological phenomena.
• Catalyst for new theories: Real-life scenarios help shape our understanding of psychology .
• Study rare conditions: Unique cases can offer invaluable lessons about uncommon disorders.
• Practical applications: Clinicians benefit from studying real-world examples.

In short (but without wrapping up), it’s clear that case studies hold immense value within psychology – they illuminate what textbooks often can’t, offering a more nuanced understanding of human behavior.

Different Types of Psychology Case Studies

Diving headfirst into the world of psychology, I can’t help but be fascinated by the myriad types of case studies that revolve around this subject. Let’s take a closer look at some of them.

Firstly, we’ve got what’s known as ‘Explanatory Case Studies’. These are often used when a researcher wants to clarify complex phenomena or concepts. For example, a psychologist might use an explanatory case study to explore the reasons behind aggressive behavior in children.

Second on our list are ‘Exploratory Case Studies’, typically utilized when new and unexplored areas of research come up. They’re like pioneers; they pave the way for future studies. In psychological terms, exploratory case studies could be conducted to investigate emerging mental health conditions or under-researched therapeutic approaches.

Next up are ‘Descriptive Case Studies’. As the name suggests, these focus on depicting comprehensive and detailed profiles about a particular individual, group, or event within its natural context. A well-known example would be Sigmund Freud’s analysis of “Anna O”, which provided unique insights into hysteria.

Then there are ‘Intrinsic Case Studies’, which delve deep into one specific case because it is intrinsically interesting or unique in some way. It’s sorta like shining a spotlight onto an exceptional phenomenon. An instance would be studying savants—individuals with extraordinary abilities despite significant mental disabilities.

Lastly, we have ‘Instrumental Case Studies’. These aren’t focused on understanding a particular case per se but use it as an instrument to understand something else altogether—a bit like using one puzzle piece to make sense of the whole picture!

So there you have it! From explanatory to instrumental, each type serves its own unique purpose and adds another intriguing layer to our understanding of human behavior and cognition.

Exploring Real-Life Psychology Case Study Examples

Let’s roll up our sleeves and delve into some real-life psychology case study examples. By digging deep, we can glean valuable insights from these studies that have significantly contributed to our understanding of human behavior and mental processes.

First off, let me share the fascinating case of Phineas Gage. This gentleman was a 19th-century railroad construction foreman who survived an accident where a large iron rod was accidentally driven through his skull, damaging his frontal lobes. Astonishingly, he could walk and talk immediately after the accident but underwent dramatic personality changes, becoming impulsive and irresponsible. This case is often referenced in discussions about brain injury and personality change.

Next on my list is Genie Wiley’s heart-wrenching story. She was a victim of severe abuse and neglect resulting in her being socially isolated until she was 13 years old. Due to this horrific experience, Genie couldn’t acquire language skills typically as other children would do during their developmental stages. Her tragic story offers invaluable insight into the critical periods for language development in children.

Then there’s ‘Little Hans’, a classic Freudian case that delves into child psychology. At just five years old, Little Hans developed an irrational fear of horses -or so it seemed- which Sigmund Freud interpreted as symbolic anxiety stemming from suppressed sexual desires towards his mother—quite an interpretation! The study gave us Freud’s Oedipus Complex theory.

Lastly, I’d like to mention Patient H.M., an individual who became amnesiac following surgery to control seizures by removing parts of his hippocampus bilaterally. His inability to form new memories post-operation shed light on how different areas of our brains contribute to memory formation.

Each one of these real-life psychology case studies gives us a unique window into understanding complex human behaviors better – whether it’s dissecting the role our brain plays in shaping personality or unraveling the mysteries of fear, language acquisition, and memory.

How to Analyze a Psychology Case Study

Diving headfirst into a psychology case study, I understand it can seem like an intimidating task. But don’t worry, I’m here to guide you through the process.

First off, it’s essential to go through the case study thoroughly. Read it multiple times if needed. Each reading will likely reveal new information or perspectives you may have missed initially. Look out for any patterns or inconsistencies in the subject’s behavior and make note of them.

Next on your agenda should be understanding the theoretical frameworks that might be applicable in this scenario. Is there a cognitive-behavioral approach at play? Or does psychoanalysis provide better insights? Comparing these theories with observed behavior and symptoms can help shed light on underlying psychological issues.

Now, let’s talk data interpretation. If your case study includes raw data like surveys or diagnostic tests results, you’ll need to analyze them carefully. Here are some steps that could help:

• Identify what each piece of data represents
• Look for correlations between different pieces of data
• Compute statistics (mean, median, mode) if necessary
• Use graphs or charts for visual representation

Keep in mind; interpreting raw data requires both statistical knowledge and intuition about human behavior.

Finally, drafting conclusions is key in analyzing a psychology case study. Based on your observations, evaluations of theoretical approaches and interpretations of any given data – what do you conclude about the subject’s mental health status? Remember not to jump to conclusions hastily but instead base them solidly on evidence from your analysis.

In all this journey of analysis remember one thing: every person is unique and so are their experiences! So while theories and previous studies guide us, they never define an individual completely.

Applying Lessons from Psychology Case Studies

Let’s dive into how we can apply the lessons learned from psychology case studies. If you’ve ever studied psychology, you’ll know that case studies offer rich insights. They shed light on human behavior, mental health issues, and therapeutic techniques. But it’s not just about understanding theory. It’s also about implementing these valuable lessons in real-world situations.

One of the most famous psychological case studies is Phineas Gage’s story. This 19th-century railroad worker survived a severe brain injury which dramatically altered his personality. From this study, we gained crucial insight into how different brain areas are responsible for various aspects of our personality and behavior.

• Lesson: Recognizing that damage to specific brain areas can result in personality changes, enabling us to better understand certain mental conditions.

Sigmund Freud’s work with a patient known as ‘Anna O.’ is another landmark psychology case study. Anna displayed what was then called hysteria – symptoms included hallucinations and disturbances in speech and physical coordination – which Freud linked back to repressed memories of traumatic events.

• Lesson: The importance of exploring an individual’s history for understanding their current psychological problems – a principle at the heart of psychoanalysis.

Then there’s Genie Wiley’s case – a girl who suffered extreme neglect resulting in impaired social and linguistic development. Researchers used her tragic circumstances as an opportunity to explore theories around language acquisition and socialization.

• Lesson: Reinforcing the critical role early childhood experiences play in shaping cognitive development.

Lastly, let’s consider the Stanford Prison Experiment led by Philip Zimbardo examining how people conform to societal roles even when they lead to immoral actions.

• Lesson: Highlighting that situational forces can drastically impact human behavior beyond personal characteristics or morality.

These examples demonstrate that psychology case studies aren’t just academic exercises isolated from daily life. Instead, they provide profound lessons that help us make sense of complex human behaviors, mental health issues, and therapeutic strategies. By understanding these studies, we’re better equipped to apply their lessons in our own lives – whether it’s navigating personal relationships, working with diverse teams at work or even self-improvement.

Challenges and Critiques of Psychological Case Studies

Delving into the world of psychological case studies, it’s not all rosy. Sure, they offer an in-depth understanding of individual behavior and mental processes. Yet, they’re not without their share of challenges and criticisms.

One common critique is the lack of generalizability. Each case study is unique to its subject. We can’t always apply what we learn from one person to everyone else. I’ve come across instances where results varied dramatically between similar subjects, highlighting the inherent unpredictability in human behavior.

Another challenge lies within ethical boundaries. Often, sensitive information surfaces during these studies that could potentially harm the subject if disclosed improperly. To put it plainly, maintaining confidentiality while delivering a comprehensive account isn’t always easy.

Distortion due to subjective interpretations also poses substantial difficulties for psychologists conducting case studies. The researcher’s own bias may color their observations and conclusions – leading to skewed outcomes or misleading findings.

Moreover, there’s an ongoing debate about the scientific validity of case studies because they rely heavily on qualitative data rather than quantitative analysis. Some argue this makes them less reliable or objective when compared with other research methods such as experiments or surveys.

To summarize:

• Lack of generalizability
• Ethical dilemmas concerning privacy
• Potential distortion through subjective interpretation
• Questions about scientific validity

While these critiques present significant challenges, they do not diminish the value that psychological case studies bring to our understanding of human behavior and mental health struggles.

Conclusion: The Impact of Case Studies in Understanding Human Behavior

Case studies play a pivotal role in shedding light on human behavior. Throughout this article, I’ve discussed numerous examples that illustrate just how powerful these studies can be. Yet it’s the impact they have on our understanding of human psychology where their true value lies.

Take for instance the iconic study of Phineas Gage. It was through his tragic accident and subsequent personality change that we began to grasp the profound influence our frontal lobes have on our behavior. Without such a case study, we might still be in the dark about this crucial aspect of our neurology.

Let’s also consider Genie, the feral child who showed us the critical importance of social interaction during early development. Her heartbreaking story underscores just how vital appropriate nurturing is for healthy mental and emotional growth.

Here are some key takeaways from these case studies:

• Our brain structure significantly influences our behavior.
• Social interaction during formative years is vital for normal psychological development.
• Studying individual cases can reveal universal truths about human nature.

What stands out though, is not merely what these case studies teach us individually but collectively. They remind us that each person constitutes a unique combination of various factors—biological, psychological, and environmental—that shape their behavior.

One cannot overstate the significance of case studies in psychology—they are more than mere stories or isolated incidents; they’re windows into the complexities and nuances of human nature itself.

In wrapping up, I’d say that while statistics give us patterns and trends to understand groups, it’s these detailed narratives offered by case studies that help us comprehend individuals’ unique experiences within those groups—making them an invaluable part of psychological research.

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• Case Studies
• Teaching Guide
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• Using the UBC Wiki
• Open Educational Resources
• Case Implementation
• Get Involved
• Process Documentation

Behaviourism

How would you solve these behaviour issues without using behaviourist techniques?      

Room Profile

Non-traditional classroom with no desks and a high-risk environment with very expensive equipment and supplies.

Class Profile

• Class of 30 grade 9 students consisting of 6 girls and 24 boys.
• Because it’s a pandemic year, students don’t get their choice of electives so only 3 students actually chose this class as their elective
• 16 designations total
• 6 IEPs - ranging from needing written instructions to having to keep them at your side and a close eye on them for the safety of the student and those in the classroom
• No EA or student aide help
• 2.5 hour class every day for 10 weeks

Description of Behaviours

Every other word uttered by students is a swear and they are incredibly disrespectful toward themselves, each other, the teacher, and the physical environment. One student is so keen on being in the room that they won’t let the teacher talk without interrupting with questions. Three other students keep talking to their neighbours and distracting them regardless of how many times the teacher waits for silence (which ends up about 25 minutes the first time on the first day). Two students refuse to put their phones away claiming they can be on them because of their IEPs; however, they cannot. One student won’t sit down and is physically throwing things around the classroom. This student’s IEP specifies that the teacher has to make sure they are seated very close to them and not to let the student “get away” with anything.

The teacher works on respectful language and discusses code switching, specifically how the classroom has different norms and behavioural expectations than outside of school and students must “switch” to adhere to these expectations when in the classroom. Emails are sent home about language use. The teacher also sits the class down for a minimum of 30 minutes each day to discuss appropriate behaviour and language in class (this continues for the first three weeks of the quarter as behaviour does not change enough to do any curriculum work). The teacher has the class come up with the following list of disciplinary measures increasing in severity:

• 1st offense: Verbal warning
• 2nd offense: Verbal warning and student moved from current location
• 3rd offense: Student sent outside of classroom
• 4th offense: Student sent outside and email home
• 5th offense: Student sent to office and email home
• 6th offense: Student removed from class      

The space is split into two parts, the classroom area and performance area. Students are not to use the performance area due to the pandemic and cleaning load of the janitors. The teacher puts tape lines on the carpet to distinguish the classroom space, but these are ignored. Emails are sent home detailing necessary classroom boundaries for the health and safety of students in the space. Chairs are put up above the lines with signs on them noting the boundaries, but these are also ignored. Emails are again sent home and administration is notified. Despite all these efforts, the behaviour persists.          .

Second week

The principal comes in to talk to the class. The behaviour continues, but the teacher notes that the use of language has gotten better.

The teacher pulls five senior students out of their classes for one day and divides the class into separate, carefully curated, groups. The teacher also arranges for a peer-tutor to come work with one student, and another is sent to the support room. Two other students are sent to the construction shop to work with the shop teacher. Everyone is successful for one hour. However, the behaviour continues when everyone is back in the classroom together. The teacher removes the students from the classroom and goes into library space with the librarian and vice principal present.

Fourth week

The Library is booked this week so the class is moved primarily outside, as it is safer to be outside during the pandemic anyway. Little to no actual classwork has happened so far.

Traditional classroom with table groups, reading area, teacher desk, and three computer stations

• Class of 30 grade 6 students consisting of 10 girls and 20 boys
• 10 designations total
• 6 IEPs - ranging from needing written instructions to having to keep them at your side and a close eye on them for the safety of the student and others in the classroom

Students exhibit a wide array of disruptive behaviours. The majority of the class is running around, yelling at each other, using disrespectful language or derogatory terms to address one another, and throwing papers and materials across the room. When the teacher tries to address the students, only a handful pay attention and listen for instructions. When the teacher asks for silence, some of the students keep talking to each other, while others keep interrupting the teacher and moving around the classroom. One student with a designation refuses to stop playing games on his phone, claiming he can use it because of his IEP accommodations; however, this student’s IEP specifies that the student should be seated very close to the teacher and to not let him “get away with anything.” Despite the teacher’s efforts, the majority of students won't remain silent or still, mocking the teacher whenever they speak. It takes the teacher 25 minutes to get the students' attention and for them to be relatively quiet. The lesson is not effective since most students tend to be distracted and off-task.

The teacher works on respectful language and discusses code switching, specifically how the classroom has different norms and behavioural expectations than outside of school and students must “switch” to adhere to these expectations when in the classroom. Emails are sent home about language use and respectful behaviour. The teacher also sits the class down for a minimum of 20 minutes each day to discuss appropriate behaviour and language in class (this continues for the first three weeks of the quarter as behaviour does not change enough to do any curriculum work). The teacher has the class come up with the following list of disciplinary measures increasing in severity:

Students are not to use the computers due to the pandemic and cleaning load of the janitors. The teacher puts tape lines on the carpet to distinguish the classroom space, but these are ignored. Emails are sent home detailing necessary classroom boundaries for the health and safety of students in the space. Chairs are put up above the lines with signs on them noting the boundaries, but these are also ignored. Emails are again sent home and administration is notified. Despite all these efforts, the behaviour persists.

The teacher pulls five students out of their classes for one day and divides the class into separate, carefully curated, groups. The teacher also arranges for a peer-tutor to come work with one student, and another is sent to the support room. Two other students are sent to the library to work with the librarian. Everyone is successful for one hour. However, the behaviour continues when everyone is back in the classroom together.

The teacher decides to move the class outside as it is safer to be outside during the pandemic anyway. Little to no actual classwork has happened so far.

Behaviourism on Station 12?

Congratulations Earthling!

As one of Earth’s top teacher candidates, you have been selected to take a tour of Station 12, one of the most advanced elementary schools on Mars! As your friendly Martian tour guide, I’ll be showing you how our education system has advanced to be one of the best in the galaxy! In honesty, our progress is all thanks to you, and your fellow Earth-dwellers. You see, about 50 years ago, we received a time capsule from Earth containing tons of interesting information, sounds, and images! In addition to learning about Justin Bieber, apparently one of Earth’s greatest poets, we learned all about Behaviorism and the perils of dehumanizing our young learners through rewards and punishments. Anyways, that’s enough jibber-jabber, where are my Martian-manners! Let’s go check out Station 12 and you can see for yourself!

As you enter Station 12, you immediately notice the absence of any shiny trophy cases that commonly adorn the lobbies of schools on Earth. You think to yourself: “I guess Martians truly don’t offer rewards for certain behaviours, at least in terms of athletics.” Noticing your curiosity, your friendly Martian turns to you and says, “We don’t use any objective forms of rewards or punishments in our classrooms! We understand that if a student receives a reward or punishment for their behaviour, they may not develop intrinsic motivation for learning.”

As you continue to walk through the hallways of Station 12, you get glimpses of different classroom environments and teaching practices. Interestingly, you don’t notice any signs of grades, stars, or points systems being used in the classrooms. On the surface, the students also seem to be completely engaged and intrinsically motivated.

As you round the next corner, your tour guide invites you into a classroom where students are just about to return from recess and continue working on their independent research projects. As the students enter the classroom on time, the teacher is giving them a big, gleaming smile. After the students are settled, you begin walking around the classroom and learning about their projects. You discover that one student is learning about Earth and another about the gravity on the Moon. The students are at different stages of their projects and some are still deciding on their topics. You overhear one student inform the teacher that they have decided to study the constellations closest to Mars. As an avid astronomer, the teacher excitedly says, “I think that is a wonderful choice!” Just then, a student enters the classroom 10 minutes late from recess. The teacher lets out a quick “hmm” and shows the slightest suggestion of a frown. Your Martian tour guide turns to you and says, “Did you see that!? No detention for arriving late to the classroom!” Before you can respond, you notice another student beginning to get distracted from their work. You watch as the teacher walks over to a student sitting beside them and, with a warm smile, says, “Great job! I’m so happy you are working hard today and staying focused. I am so proud!” Interestingly, you notice the distracted student begin working again. Another student approaches the teacher and says, “I’ve decided to change my topic to the gravitational pull of the Moon!” Hearing this, the teacher says, “That's a clever idea!” and offers them a quick wink and a warm smile as the student bounces away, seemingly happy with the interaction. Just as you’re about to leave the classroom, you watch as another student explains to the teacher that they have decided to research Emily Carr and the emotions her paintings surface in both humans and Martians. Just as you exit the classroom, you watch the teacher scrunch their noise ever so slightly and say, “Oh. Okay. That’s a good choice,” before immediately moving their attention to another student.

As you leave the school, your Martian tour guide turns to you and says, “So!? What do you think? Pretty impressive, eh? We learned from the time capsule and don’t use any forms of rewards or punishments!” Before you can respond, you are awoken by one of your friends. You’re in EPSE 308 and it’s your turn to discuss your perspectives on Behaviourism. Good luck, Earth-dweller!

Possible Discussion Questions

• In the classrooms on Station 12, you were informed that there were no objective forms of rewards or punishments for students' behaviour. Did you notice any subtle (maybe even unconscious) forms of behaviourism?
• As a teacher candidate, you may be motivated to cultivate a classroom environment that fits your needs and values as a teacher. In this case study, the teacher did this by encouraging students to attend class on time, stay engaged in their work, and pick topics that they themselves deemed worthy. Are these subtle forms of behaviourism more or less harmful, compared to more tangible and objective rewards and punishments? Explain your reasoning.
• As a future teacher, how might you become more aware of your subconscious values and goals for your classroom? How will you manage them in your classroom?
• What do you see as the pros and cons of behaviourism?

Dear Colleague

I can’t imagine you have an answer to this question, but you seem to have been thinking a lot about how to motivate your students and when it comes to this, I’m at a total loss! I thought I had it all figured out, but no – my plan to motivate my students has totally backfired. Help!

I’m teaching seventh grade language arts for the first time this year, and one goal of mine going into this term was to encourage my students to become independent readers. Well, lucky for me, the school librarian, Ms. Daniels, had a program set up this year to do just that! You see, there’s a new book coming out at the end of the year – it’s the latest in a series of young adult novels that’s all the rage right now. Vampires, wizards, a dystopian world – this series has got it all. Anyway, the school librarian KNOWS that this book will be a hot commodity the moment it’s released. When the last in the series came out, she had about fifty holds on it the second she entered it into the library catalogue!

Ms. Daniels devised a system to encourage independent reading. It’s simple: each time a student reads a book from the library – any book – they fill out a worksheet to reflect on it and show they’ve read it. It's just a few questions, asking for a brief plot summary, something they liked about the book, something it made them think about – things like that. Anyway, each time a student hands in a worksheet on a book they’ve read, they get a point, or points, depending on the length of the book. You get one point if you read a book that’s at least 100 pages, two if you read a book that’s at least 200 pages, three if it’s more than 300 pages – you get the idea. The student in the school who has the most points at the end of the year wins a copy of that new young adult novel that everyone wants. It’s bound to fly off the shelves and be sold out for weeks, so they’ll be one of the first to get it!

Well, since I’m teaching language arts this year, I thought I’d supplement Ms. Daniels' competition with some extra motivation – to really get my students wanting to read. After all, not every student in my class is a fan of this series. So, I told my class that for every reading worksheet they hand in to the librarian, they'll also get a bonus mark they can add to their final assignment for the year. It would never change their grade significantly, but hopefully just enough to get them reading. Simple, right?

It all seemed to be going smoothly at first. In the beginning, Bilal was the student who was gaining the most points. He's a high achiever and has always been an avid reader, so that wasn't surprising. But then I had some unexpected runner-ups. A few students who were otherwise struggling in my class, Andy and Sobiga, started gaining more points, and fast! They were giving Bilal a run for his money.

At first, I was thrilled! But that all changed on Friday afternoon. Bilal and Andy had been close friends all term, but on Friday during class, they seemed to have a falling out. Then Bilal lingered after the bell to talk to me. Bilal declared: "Andy is cheating!" When I asked him what he meant, he explained: "He doesn't actually READ any books! He just looks at summaries online to fill out those worksheets!"

To add to my stress, I heard the next day that students in the neighbouring seventh grade class, taught by Mr. Chu, were complaining that my students had an unfair advantage over them because of the bonus marks I had promised. Mr. Chu has even gotten several calls from parents who felt that my students have an advantage over theirs.

As you can see, my plan to encourage reading has gone totally awry! What should I do now? And, most importantly, how can I motivate my students to read?

Ms. Mahmoud

Potential Reflection Questions

1. Identify and provide examples of the types of behaviourism used in the case study (positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment, negative punishment).

2. Going beyond the events described in this scenario, what are possible pros and cons of this teacher’s choice to establish a reward system to encourage reading?

3. What suggestions would have for this teacher and the librarian to encourage reading without relying on behaviourist strategies?

4. Assuming Bilal's allegations about Andy are true, how might you deal with this situation? What might be contributing to Andy's behaviour? How could this issue have been prevented?

Additional resources

• https://www.alfiekohn.org/article/reading-incentives/
• https://www.thisamericanlife.org/713/made-to-be-broken/act-two-11

When re-using this resource, please attribute as follows:

This UBC EPSE 308 Behaviourism Open Case Study was developed by Benjamin Dantzer, Lee Iskander, and Sharmilla Miller and it is licensed under a under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Post Image: Educators .co.uk, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

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What Is a Case Study?

Weighing the pros and cons of this method of research

Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Cara Lustik is a fact-checker and copywriter.

Verywell / Colleen Tighe

• Pros and Cons

What Types of Case Studies Are Out There?

Where do you find data for a case study, how do i write a psychology case study.

A case study is an in-depth study of one person, group, or event. In a case study, nearly every aspect of the subject's life and history is analyzed to seek patterns and causes of behavior. Case studies can be used in many different fields, including psychology, medicine, education, anthropology, political science, and social work.

The point of a case study is to learn as much as possible about an individual or group so that the information can be generalized to many others. Unfortunately, case studies tend to be highly subjective, and it is sometimes difficult to generalize results to a larger population.

While case studies focus on a single individual or group, they follow a format similar to other types of psychology writing. If you are writing a case study, we got you—here are some rules of APA format to reference.  

At a Glance

A case study, or an in-depth study of a person, group, or event, can be a useful research tool when used wisely. In many cases, case studies are best used in situations where it would be difficult or impossible for you to conduct an experiment. They are helpful for looking at unique situations and allow researchers to gather a lot of˜ information about a specific individual or group of people. However, it's important to be cautious of any bias we draw from them as they are highly subjective.

What Are the Benefits and Limitations of Case Studies?

A case study can have its strengths and weaknesses. Researchers must consider these pros and cons before deciding if this type of study is appropriate for their needs.

One of the greatest advantages of a case study is that it allows researchers to investigate things that are often difficult or impossible to replicate in a lab. Some other benefits of a case study:

• Allows researchers to capture information on the 'how,' 'what,' and 'why,' of something that's implemented
• Gives researchers the chance to collect information on why one strategy might be chosen over another
• Permits researchers to develop hypotheses that can be explored in experimental research

On the other hand, a case study can have some drawbacks:

• It cannot necessarily be generalized to the larger population
• Cannot demonstrate cause and effect
• It may not be scientifically rigorous
• It can lead to bias

Researchers may choose to perform a case study if they want to explore a unique or recently discovered phenomenon. Through their insights, researchers develop additional ideas and study questions that might be explored in future studies.

It's important to remember that the insights from case studies cannot be used to determine cause-and-effect relationships between variables. However, case studies may be used to develop hypotheses that can then be addressed in experimental research.

Case Study Examples

There have been a number of notable case studies in the history of psychology. Much of  Freud's work and theories were developed through individual case studies. Some great examples of case studies in psychology include:

• Anna O : Anna O. was a pseudonym of a woman named Bertha Pappenheim, a patient of a physician named Josef Breuer. While she was never a patient of Freud's, Freud and Breuer discussed her case extensively. The woman was experiencing symptoms of a condition that was then known as hysteria and found that talking about her problems helped relieve her symptoms. Her case played an important part in the development of talk therapy as an approach to mental health treatment.
• Phineas Gage : Phineas Gage was a railroad employee who experienced a terrible accident in which an explosion sent a metal rod through his skull, damaging important portions of his brain. Gage recovered from his accident but was left with serious changes in both personality and behavior.
• Genie : Genie was a young girl subjected to horrific abuse and isolation. The case study of Genie allowed researchers to study whether language learning was possible, even after missing critical periods for language development. Her case also served as an example of how scientific research may interfere with treatment and lead to further abuse of vulnerable individuals.

Such cases demonstrate how case research can be used to study things that researchers could not replicate in experimental settings. In Genie's case, her horrific abuse denied her the opportunity to learn a language at critical points in her development.

This is clearly not something researchers could ethically replicate, but conducting a case study on Genie allowed researchers to study phenomena that are otherwise impossible to reproduce.

There are a few different types of case studies that psychologists and other researchers might use:

• Collective case studies : These involve studying a group of individuals. Researchers might study a group of people in a certain setting or look at an entire community. For example, psychologists might explore how access to resources in a community has affected the collective mental well-being of those who live there.
• Descriptive case studies : These involve starting with a descriptive theory. The subjects are then observed, and the information gathered is compared to the pre-existing theory.
• Explanatory case studies : These   are often used to do causal investigations. In other words, researchers are interested in looking at factors that may have caused certain things to occur.
• Exploratory case studies : These are sometimes used as a prelude to further, more in-depth research. This allows researchers to gather more information before developing their research questions and hypotheses .
• Instrumental case studies : These occur when the individual or group allows researchers to understand more than what is initially obvious to observers.
• Intrinsic case studies : This type of case study is when the researcher has a personal interest in the case. Jean Piaget's observations of his own children are good examples of how an intrinsic case study can contribute to the development of a psychological theory.

The three main case study types often used are intrinsic, instrumental, and collective. Intrinsic case studies are useful for learning about unique cases. Instrumental case studies help look at an individual to learn more about a broader issue. A collective case study can be useful for looking at several cases simultaneously.

The type of case study that psychology researchers use depends on the unique characteristics of the situation and the case itself.

There are a number of different sources and methods that researchers can use to gather information about an individual or group. Six major sources that have been identified by researchers are:

• Archival records : Census records, survey records, and name lists are examples of archival records.
• Direct observation : This strategy involves observing the subject, often in a natural setting . While an individual observer is sometimes used, it is more common to utilize a group of observers.
• Documents : Letters, newspaper articles, administrative records, etc., are the types of documents often used as sources.
• Interviews : Interviews are one of the most important methods for gathering information in case studies. An interview can involve structured survey questions or more open-ended questions.
• Participant observation : When the researcher serves as a participant in events and observes the actions and outcomes, it is called participant observation.
• Physical artifacts : Tools, objects, instruments, and other artifacts are often observed during a direct observation of the subject.

If you have been directed to write a case study for a psychology course, be sure to check with your instructor for any specific guidelines you need to follow. If you are writing your case study for a professional publication, check with the publisher for their specific guidelines for submitting a case study.

Here is a general outline of what should be included in a case study.

Section 1: A Case History

This section will have the following structure and content:

Background information : The first section of your paper will present your client's background. Include factors such as age, gender, work, health status, family mental health history, family and social relationships, drug and alcohol history, life difficulties, goals, and coping skills and weaknesses.

Description of the presenting problem : In the next section of your case study, you will describe the problem or symptoms that the client presented with.

Describe any physical, emotional, or sensory symptoms reported by the client. Thoughts, feelings, and perceptions related to the symptoms should also be noted. Any screening or diagnostic assessments that are used should also be described in detail and all scores reported.

Your diagnosis : Provide your diagnosis and give the appropriate Diagnostic and Statistical Manual code. Explain how you reached your diagnosis, how the client's symptoms fit the diagnostic criteria for the disorder(s), or any possible difficulties in reaching a diagnosis.

Section 2: Treatment Plan

This portion of the paper will address the chosen treatment for the condition. This might also include the theoretical basis for the chosen treatment or any other evidence that might exist to support why this approach was chosen.

• Cognitive behavioral approach : Explain how a cognitive behavioral therapist would approach treatment. Offer background information on cognitive behavioral therapy and describe the treatment sessions, client response, and outcome of this type of treatment. Make note of any difficulties or successes encountered by your client during treatment.
• Humanistic approach : Describe a humanistic approach that could be used to treat your client, such as client-centered therapy . Provide information on the type of treatment you chose, the client's reaction to the treatment, and the end result of this approach. Explain why the treatment was successful or unsuccessful.
• Psychoanalytic approach : Describe how a psychoanalytic therapist would view the client's problem. Provide some background on the psychoanalytic approach and cite relevant references. Explain how psychoanalytic therapy would be used to treat the client, how the client would respond to therapy, and the effectiveness of this treatment approach.
• Pharmacological approach : If treatment primarily involves the use of medications, explain which medications were used and why. Provide background on the effectiveness of these medications and how monotherapy may compare with an approach that combines medications with therapy or other treatments.

This section of a case study should also include information about the treatment goals, process, and outcomes.

When you are writing a case study, you should also include a section where you discuss the case study itself, including the strengths and limitiations of the study. You should note how the findings of your case study might support previous research. 

In your discussion section, you should also describe some of the implications of your case study. What ideas or findings might require further exploration? How might researchers go about exploring some of these questions in additional studies?

Need More Tips?

Here are a few additional pointers to keep in mind when formatting your case study:

• Never refer to the subject of your case study as "the client." Instead, use their name or a pseudonym.
• Read examples of case studies to gain an idea about the style and format.
• Remember to use APA format when citing references .

Crowe S, Cresswell K, Robertson A, Huby G, Avery A, Sheikh A. The case study approach .  BMC Med Res Methodol . 2011;11:100.

Crowe S, Cresswell K, Robertson A, Huby G, Avery A, Sheikh A. The case study approach . BMC Med Res Methodol . 2011 Jun 27;11:100. doi:10.1186/1471-2288-11-100

Gagnon, Yves-Chantal.  The Case Study as Research Method: A Practical Handbook . Canada, Chicago Review Press Incorporated DBA Independent Pub Group, 2010.

Yin, Robert K. Case Study Research and Applications: Design and Methods . United States, SAGE Publications, 2017.

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.

1.8 Individual Behaviour and Approaches

Organizational behaviour concerns the individual, teams, and the organization itself.  It looks at how people think, feel, and behave.

Individuals bring several differences to work, such as unique personalities, values, emotions, and moods. When new employees enter organizations, their stable or transient characteristics affect their behaviour and performance. Moreover, companies hire people expecting those individuals to have certain skills, abilities, personalities, and values. Therefore, it is important to understand individual characteristics that matter for employee behaviours at work.

When hiring employees, companies are interested in assessing at least two types of fit. Person-organization fit  refers to the degree to which a person’s values, personality, goals, and other characteristics match those of the organization.  Person-job fit is the degree to which a person’s skill, knowledge, abilities, and other characteristics match the job demands. Thus, a proactive and creative person may be a great fit for a company in the high-tech sector that would benefit from risk-taking individuals but may be a poor fit for a company that rewards routine and predictable behaviour, such as accountants. Similarly, this person may be an excellent fit for a job such as a scientist but a poor fit for a routine office job.

Values refer to stable life goals that people have, reflecting what is most important to them. Values are established throughout one’s life because of the accumulating life experiences and tend to be relatively stable (Lusk & Oliver, 1974; Rokeach, 1973). The values that are important to people tend to affect their decisions, how they perceive their environment, and their actual behaviours. Moreover, people are more likely to accept job offers when the company possesses the values people care about (Judge & Bretz, 1992; Ravlin & Meglino, 1987). Value attainment is one reason people stay in a company, and when an organization does not help them attain their values, they are more likely to leave if they are dissatisfied with the job itself (George & Jones, 1996).

Personality

Personality encompasses the relatively stable feelings, thoughts, and behavioural patterns a person has. Our personality differentiates us from other people and understanding someone’s personality gives us clues about how that person is likely to act and feel in various situations. To manage organizational behaviour effectively, an understanding of different employees’ personalities is helpful. Having this knowledge is also useful for placing people in jobs and organizations.

Big Five Personality Traits 

How many personality traits are there? How do we even know? In every language, there are many words describing a person’s personality. In fact, more than 15,000 words describing personality have been identified in the English language. When researchers analyzed the terms describing personality characteristics, they realized that many words pointed to each dimension of personality. When these words were grouped, five dimensions seemed to emerge that explain a lot of the variation in our personalities (Goldberg, 1990). Remember that these five are not necessarily the only traits out there. Other specific traits represent dimensions not captured by the Big Five. Still, understanding the main five traits gives us a good start for describing personality. A summary of the Big Five traits is presented in Figure 1.8.1.

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

Aside from the Big Five personality traits, perhaps the most well-known and most often used personality assessment is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). Unlike the Big Five, which assesses traits, MBTI measures types. Assessments of the Big Five do not classify people as neurotic or extrovert: It is all a matter of degrees. MBTI on the other hand, classifies people as one of 16 types (Carlyn, 1977; Myers, 1962). In MBTI, people are grouped using four dimensions. Based on how a person is classified on these four dimensions, it is possible to talk about 16 unique personality types, such as ESTJ and ISTP.

  Self-Monitoring

Self-Monitoring refers to the extent to which a person can monitor his or her actions and appearance in social situations. In other words, high social monitors are social chameleons who understand what the situation demands and act accordingly, while low social monitors tend to act the way they feel (Snyder, 1974; Snyder, 1987). High social monitors are sensitive to the types of behaviours the social environment expects from them. Their greater ability to modify their behaviour according to the demands of the situation and to manage their impressions effectively is a great advantage for them (Turnley & Bolino, 2001). In general, they tend to be more successful in their careers. They are more likely to get cross-company promotions, and even when they stay with one company, they are more likely to advance (Day & Schleicher; Kilduff & Day, 1994). Social monitors also become the “go to” person in their company and they enjoy central positions in their social networks (Mehra, Kilduff, & Brass, 2001). They are rated as higher performers, and emerge as leaders (Day et al., 2002)

Self-Esteem

Self-esteem  is the degree to which a person has overall positive feelings about his or herself. People with high self-esteem view themselves in a positive light, are confident, and respect themselves. On the other hand, people with low self-esteem experience high levels of self-doubt and question their self-worth. High self-esteem is related to higher levels of satisfaction with one’s job and higher levels of performance on the job (Judge & Bono, 2001). People with low self-esteem are attracted to situations in which they will be relatively invisible, such as large companies (Turban & Keon, 1993). Managing employees with low self-esteem may be challenging at times, because negative feedback given with the intention to improve performance may be viewed as a judgment on their worth as an employee. Therefore, effectively managing employees with relatively low self-esteem requires tact and providing lots of positive feedback when discussing performance incidents.

Locus of Control

Locus of control deals with the degree to which people feel accountable for their own behaviours. Individuals with high internal locus of control believe that they control their own destiny and what happens to them is their own doing, while those with high external locus of control feel that things happen to them because of other people, luck, or a powerful being. Internals feel greater control over their own lives and therefore they act in ways that will increase their chances of success.

Personality Testing in Employee Selection

Personality is a potentially important predictor of work behaviour. Matching people to jobs matters because when people do not fit with their jobs or the company, they are more likely to leave, costing companies as much as a person’s annual salary to replace them. In job interviews, companies try to assess a candidate’s personality and the potential for a good match, but interviews are only as good as the people conducting them. In fact, interviewers are not particularly good at detecting the best trait that predicts performance: conscientiousness (Barrick, Patton, & Haugland, 2000). Some companies use personality testing to improve this match and detect the people who are potentially good job candidates.

Yet are these methods good ways of selecting employees? Experts have not yet agreed on this subject, which is highly controversial. Some experts believe, based on data, that personality tests predict performance and other important criteria such as job satisfaction. However, we must understand that how a personality test is used influences its validity.

In any case, if you decide to use these tests for selection, you need to be aware of their limitations. Relying only on personality tests for the selection of an employee is a bad idea, but if they are used together with other tests such as tests of cognitive abilities, better decisions may be made.

Our behaviour is not only a function of our personality, values, and preferences but also of the situation. We interpret our environment, formulate responses, and act accordingly. Perception may be defined as the process with which individuals detect and interpret environmental stimuli. What makes human perception so interesting is that we do not solely respond to the stimuli in our environment. We go beyond the information in our environment, pay selective attention to some aspects of the environment, and ignore other elements that may be immediately apparent to other people. Our perception of the environment is not entirely rational. For example, have you ever noticed that while glancing at a newspaper or a news Web site, information that is interesting or important to you jumps out of the page and catches your eye?

Visual Perception:   You may have realized that our visual perception is faulty and may make witness testimony faulty and biased. How do we know whether the employee you judge to be hardworking, fast, and neat is really like that? Is it true, or are we comparing this person to others in the immediate environment? Our biased visual perception may lead to the wrong inferences about the people around us.

Self-Perception: Human beings are prone to errors and biases when perceiving themselves. Moreover, the type of bias people have depends on their personality. Many people suffer from self-enhancement bias. This is the tendency to overestimate our performance and capabilities and see ourselves in a more positive light than others see us.  At the same time, other people have the opposing extreme, which may be labelled as self-effacement bias. This is the tendency for people to underestimate their performance, undervalue capabilities, and see events in a way that puts them in a more negative light.

Motivation (Employee Engagement)

Employee Engagement is an individual’s motivation on a cognitive (logical) and emotional (feelings) level to work toward organizational goals. Employees make a commitment to their employer and to their job tasks. Motivated employees believe they have the skills, clear goals and the resources to complete their work. Engaged employees are enthusiastic to come to work, are dedicated to their job, are productive and dedicated workers. Employee engagement is critical to a company’s success. Employers can encourage employee engagement through effective communication, offering rewards and career advancement.

Human Resources plays a critical role in engaging employees and can have an impact through:

• Transparency and inclusion:  ensure everyone has a “voice” to share ideas, acknowledge differences among employees, create opportunities for employees to meet/gather, ensure all employees understand the goals, values and beliefs in the company and provide employees with a sense of purpose within the organization.
• Communication: ensure employees have a clear sense of the job and the expectations, share information with employees, have regular conversations with employees (formal and informal, provide training in communication
• Recognition : ensure employees are recognized for achievements and accomplishments, reward employees through advancement, and celebrate accomplishments (big and small).
• Well-being : create and promote a learning culture of well-being through meetings, informal chats, break periods, and organization activities (annual picnic, sports days, etc.), model the behaviours that are expected to promote well-being, identify signs of stress and eliminate toxic environments.
• Connectedness: develop relationships with employees, develop cross-department relationships, build rapport within teams, form project teams/working groups that promote team building, provide training in team building, and host events that create shared experiences professionally and socially.

Human Resources can send out engagement surveys to identify interests or issues with employees.  The employees have an opportunity to voice their opinions to assist in improving job satisfaction and “happy” employees.  Regardless of the engagement tactic, engaged employees feel connected to their work because they can relate to and are committed to the organization’s overall success.

Employee Engagement Competency

•  Maintain knowledge of the literature on employee engagement.
•  Advocate strategies to enhance employee engagement with senior management.
•  Measure employee engagement and morale.
•  Develop potential strategies to enhance employee engagement.
•  Create work plans to implement employee engagement initiatives.
•  Assess the impact of employee engagement initiatives.
•  Measure employee productivity.

Source: HRPA Professional Competency Framework (2014) , pg. 12. © HRPA, all rights reserved.

“ 3.2 The Interactionist Perspective: The Role of Fit”  & “ 3.3 Individual Differences: Values and Personality ” & “ 3.4 Perception ” from Organizational Behavior by University of Minnesota are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Human Resources Management Copyright © 2023 by Debra Patterson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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MARS model of Individual Behaviour – Case study

I have previously blogged on the MARS model of Individual Behaviour and Performance . MARS is the shorthand for Motivations, Ability, Role Perception and Situational Factors.

Yesterday I had a conversation with a friend and colleague of mind that is wonderful case study in practice. I thought it is too good to pass.

Case in point is that our office has been looking for an office manager for a very long time. Despite efforts from HR on sourcing candidates, we have not had much luck. My friend, call her Anne, currently one of the executive assistants was asked if she wanted to take up the role. The role will be reporting to the business unit head (not myself). It was the second time Anne was asked to consider the role. The first time being immediately after our previous office manager resigned a few months ago.

Anne has been a reliable, diligent executive assistant for us for the last few years. Been through a lot of up and down in the company. However, she is not keen on taking up the role. As we talked, I tried to probe her thinking a bit more.

MARS Model in Practice

Objectively assessing the situation with her, I told her that in the last few months since the previous office manager left, she has been picking up a lot of the tasks that was previously done by the office manager. In a way, she was already doing part of the job, but without the additional pay, rewards and recognition that goes with the more senior role.

Therefore, from an “ Ability to do the job ” standpoint, and also understanding of the role (i.e. Role perception) Anne is already well qualified.

The reason she explained to me why she does not want to take up the role was three folds.

Firstly, she is not comfortable with the person that the office manager role will be reporting to. Observing in many instances, she does not feel that if she is in the role, the manager will “have her back” in supporting her to succeed in the new role. As office assistants, she has seen many of the behind the scene dynamics of our office and knows well if she can work well with a person, especially if that person is her direct manager. The trust level is not there, there was no sense of Circle of Safety established .

Secondly, she is going through certain family challenges at home. She has been working many late hours at home recently (thanks to hybrid working!), even to the point where her primarily school son is asking her “Mummy, why can’t you finish your work?”. Unfortunately to a young primary school boy, unlike homework where things are “finite”, real life situation can be very different.

Thirdly, she was afraid that her relationship with other colleagues will also change in a negative way because of the role that she will be in. On this point, I have to say I have my personal take on the situation. I believe that if handled well, the good relationship she has with her peer can be well maintained.

From the conversation, it was quite clear to me that Anne’s motivation to take up the job is not there. She is also dealing with other situation factors around her family that is much more important for her. It was also at the point I know that I should respect her decision and not encourage her to further think about the role.

At the end of the day, as the saying goes – “We live to work, not work to live”. I wish my friend “Anne” here able to get through her family challenges soon.

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Organizational Factors in the Individual Ethical Behaviour. The Notion of the “Organizational Moral Structure”

• Original research
• Open access
• Published: 27 March 2020
• Volume 6 , pages 187–209, ( 2021 )

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• Paulina Roszkowska 1 , 2 &
• Domènec Melé 3  

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Various organizational factors reported in the hitherto literature affect individual (mis)behaviour within a company. In this paper, we conduct a literature review thereof, and propose a notion of the “Organizational Moral Structure” defined as a comprehensive framework of interrelated organizational factors that condition, incite or influence good or bad moral behaviour of individuals within the organization. Drawing from a wide bibliographical review and our own reflection on recent business scandals, we identify seven constituents of the “Organizational Moral Structure”: 1) leader’s values and character, 2) vision and exercise of power, 3) corporate control systems, 4) internal network of influence, 5) organizational culture, 6) internal and competitive pressures, and 7) external influences. The “Organizational Moral Structure” is proposed as a reflective framework for humanistic management and as an invitation to further research in this field. We provide recommendations on how a manager oriented towards humanistic management can use the OMS to secure and promote well-being and dignity of company’s employees.

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Introduction

The influence of the internal and external organizational factors on individual ethical behaviour has been studied for a long time. The oldest contributions go back to Cressey who introduced the notion of “fraud triangle” ( 1953 ). Under his hypothesis, fraudulent behaviour is influenced by three factors: pressure, opportunity, and rationalization. Pressure or incentive motivates a fraud, which can be executed when it concurs with the opportunity to perform it. Rationalization of the fraudulent act, i.e. viewing it as justifiable in a given situation, is the third influential factor to committee a fraud. Albrecht et al. ( 1982 ) connect rationalization with personal integrity. They examine various academic and business sources and identify 82 fraud-related variables in the business context that encourage misbehaviour. They group these factors in three categories: 1) situational pressures, 2) opportunities to commit fraud, and 3) personal integrity (character). Building on these three groups and refining other seminal ideas, W.S. Albrecht advocates that “individuals are motivated to commit a fraud when three elements come together: 1) some kind of perceived pressure 2) some perceived opportunity and 3) some way to rationalize the fraud as not being inconsistent with one’s values” (Albrecht 2014 ). While many accept “The Fraud Triangle,” others perceive it too narrow. Among the latter, Lokanan ( 2015 ) argues that a fraud is a multifaceted phenomenon, the contextual factors of which may not fit into a particular framework like those of “The Fraud Triangle”.

Scholars investigating corporate misbehaviour point to a number of factors that contribute to corporate scandals and collapses. Soltani ( 2014 ) analyses six well-known corporate frauds (Enron, WorldCom, HealthSouth, Parmalat, Royal Ahold and Vivendi Universal) and finds several possible causes of wrongdoing: ineffective boards, inefficient corporate governance and control mechanisms, distorted incentive schemes, accounting irregularities, auditory failures, dominant CEOs, dysfunctional management behaviour, and the lack of a sound ethical tone at the top. Abid and Ahmed ( 2014 ) make a review of 55 corporate collapses from 16 countries during the period 1990–2014 along with analysing the role of their allegedly sound corporate leaders in each company’s failure. They attribute most collapses to either over ambition or greed of top executives, who indulged in high-risk ventures in order to expand.

Another source of knowledge of organizational factors and individual ethical behaviour is the literature on ethical decision-making. It suggests the co-existence of personal and organizational factors in ethical decision-making (Ford and Richardson 1994 ; Loe et al. 2000 ; O’Fallon and Butterfield 2005 ; Craft 2013 ). According to the findings, organizational factors include codes of conduct and the process of their implementation, rewards and sanctions, peers and management, ethical training and organizational culture, among others.

Notably, various factors proposed in the literature often overlap or paint a disperse picture. Against this backdrop, we conduct an analysis of organizational factors with an influence on individual behaviour, and we group them in seven categories. This provides a foundation for the main aim of this paper which is to propose a comprehensive framework of organizational factors that condition, incite or influence good or bad moral behaviour of individuals within an organization. We term it the “Organizational Moral Structure” (hereafter, ‘OMS’). The seven categories mentioned previously are highly interrelated and are considered as constituencies of the OMS. Importantly, our intention in developing the OMS framework is to deliver a practical tool for managers that helps them understand the OMS in order to deal with the elements of this structure to foster good individual behaviours in their companies. Therefore, our primary goal is not to provide yet another thorough literature review (see e.g., Moore and Gino 2015 ; Treviño et al. 2014 ; Treviño and Nelson 2017 ). Rather, we seek to contribute to the practical development of humanistic management in organisations.

Humanistic management replaces the dominant techno-economic paradigm of management with the one that is centred on people (Dierksmeier 2016 ; Melé 2003 ; Pirson et al. 2014 ). Humanistic management does not reject efficiency consideration as an organizational goal, but it goes beyond it by focussing on people, their dignity and on a continuous process of their development as human beings. The humanistic approach to management leads us to see a business organization primarily as a community of persons, with a goal of common good, particularly in terms of human flourishing. To this point, Melé suggests that recognizing a firm as a “community of persons” is a pillar of humanistic management ( 2012 ). He affirms that “being a ‘community of persons’ emphasizes both individuals and the whole and makes explicit the uniqueness, conscience, free will, dignity, and openness to self-realization and human flourishing of each one who form the community” (Melé 2012 p. 99). This requires favouring virtuous behaviours and establishing means to avoid misbehaviours. The achievement thereof posits the question of how corporate environment can promote or hinder good behaviour and what specific factors have influence on that.

In a certain sense, humanistic managers are continuously building up the community of persons by improving the sense of unity and cooperation and by trying to foster the development of moral virtues of people involved therein. Consequently, it makes sense for a sound humanistic management to reflect on how to improve ethical behaviour of employees. We hope that the “Organizational Moral Structure” framework contributes to the development of humanistic management by serving as a tool for analysing how to eliminate misbehaviours and how to foster good behaviours of others in the organizational context—a topic that has, so far, been scarcely considered in the modern approach to management.

This article is organized as follows. First, we review literature on organizational factors that condition, incite or influence moral behaviour of individuals within the organization. We complement it with insights drawn from well-known cases of corporate misbehaviour. Hereto, we group these factors in seven categories identified in an exploratory study. Second, we discuss the interconnection among these categories trying to show that a network of mutual dependences exists. Building thereupon, we propose the notion of the “Organizational Moral Structure” (OMS), inspired on the theological notion of “structures of sin”, which gives a comprehensive sense to all relevant organizational factors. Third, we discuss the relevance of managers in handling and shaping the OMS constituents in a way that they contribute to humanizing organizations. Specifically, we analyse the capacity of managers, and particularly top executives, for shaping the OMS that promotes good behaviour.

Organizational Factors Affecting Individual Ethical Behaviour

Findings mentioned in the introduction provide first evidence that some organizational factors affect individual behaviour, but not to the point of whatsoever denying individual moral conscience, freedom and corresponding responsibility. Conversely, acknowledging that individuals bear certain responsibility does not conflict the possibility that external factors affect individual decision-making and behaviour too.

If so, certain responsibility can also be attributed to the modern corporation as a whole; even though the latter is ultimately managed by personal moral agents. The reason for ascribing some moral responsibility also to the company is that there are “collective actions” done when individuals cooperate, which is a form of responsibility. Even the common language recognizes the existence of collective actions, for instance when people say that “a paper mill pollutes the air” or “a carmaker produces goods cars”. The results of a collective action, and even the collective action itself, can be evaluated in moral terms: one contemplates whether a collective action contributes to human good or whether it is right or wrong from the ethical principles perspective. However, when conducting a moral evaluation of a collective action and ascribing responsibility to a collective, we cannot forget that such actions consist of individual actions, and a respective individual responsibility. In other words, collective responsibility in an organization is shared by different agents, although the degree of responsibility might differ. In most collective actions, top managers will most likely bear greater responsibility than floor-shop employees.

Having said that, we acknowledge individual responsibility within the organizational context, but we also recognize it is being influenced by external factors. Upon an exploratory literature analysis and our own reflection on some recent business scandals, we identify seven groups of organizational factors that affect individual behaviour within an organization.

Factors Related to Leader’s Values and Character

First, Bandura ( 1977 ) suggests that through so-called modelling processes, leaders influence their followers as this is how values, attitudes, and behaviours are transmitted within an organization. In particular, modelling means that in the process of observing leaders’ behaviour and the subsequent consequences thereof, employees learn what is accepted and what is not, and are likely to imitate the behaviour of those with authority. Then, consecutive studies acknowledged that, through their behaviour, leaders serve as role models to employees (see e.g., Bass 1985 ; Kouzes and Posner 1987 ). Importantly, Kemper argues that leaders who engage in misbehaviour create circumstances that legitimate misbehaviour at lower levels: “if the boss (read the organization) can do it, so can I” (Kemper 1966 p. 295). As aggregated individual misbehaviour often leads to big corporate scandals, Soltani ( 2014 ) notices that the lack of a sound ethical tone at the top increases the propensity of scandals and misbehaviour.

Serving as a role model, managers can influence lower level employees to act ethically or unethically (Treviño and Brown 2005 ). Therefore, it is important what type of ethical tone is sent from the top. This, in turn, relates to leaders’ moral character and values. Character is generally understood as stable moral qualities of an individual, shaped by virtues (positive) or vices (negative) while values express preferences that drive actions. Both values and virtues are relevant to ethical behaviour, and consequently to misbehaviours of any individual. Hambrick and Mason ( 1984 ) argue that organizational outcomes are strongly determined by top executives’ cognitive frameworks and value commitments. When analysing cases of scandals and misconduct, value commitments play a pivotal role because it is the top management who have the formal status and practical capacity to influence organizational decisions and actions (Finkelstein and Hambrick 1990 ). We conclude that top managers, through their values and virtues, or lack thereof, become role models in an organization. In doing so, they set the tone for other peoples’ actions, which is a critical element in giving rise to corporate scandals.

Moreover, when individuals consecutively mimic the behaviour of managers, in time they are also likely to absorb values fostered by the top. Goodpaster ( 2007 ) argues that individuals within an organizational context tend to abandon personal values in favour of corporate-practiced values. Decision-makers at various levels need to act on corporate projects and operations in a manner that is expected of them by those at the top. Often, when there is no alignment of personal and corporate-practiced values people within organizations must give up something: either financial success or ethical values (Mostovicz et al. 2011 ). In the pursuit of corporate goals, they may sacrifice the latter. This happens in a situation when a choice or an action puts values and ethical principles, with which an individual closely identifies, at risk (Goodstein 2000 ). Hereto, one needs to explain that the corporate values mentioned are not those that organizations announce officially in their corporate websites; rather those that are truly practiced and fostered from the top. The former may be what is formally stated in the corporate statements of values, but the latter are what is often actually practiced in the course of everyday decisions, operations and interactions among specific individuals and that originate in those who execute power in the company. We observe that in the Enron scandal, in theory, the company’s management preached four corporate values (integrity, respect, communication, and excellence). In practice, personal behaviour was actually fuelled by informal values promoted by top executives: greed, arrogance, ruthlessness, corruption and chasing targets at any cost (the bottom line being the supreme value) (Windsor 2018 ). There were indirect personal aims involved—top executives sought to keep their positions and earn bonuses that depended on the bottom line. Therefore, in practice, management promoted values other than the official ones. In a bigger picture, Abid and Ahmed ( 2014 ), after reviewing 55 corporate collapses, conclude that greed and overambition of top executives are among the crucial causes of wrongdoing, followed by manager’s ambitions for an aggressive company’s growth and expansion and poor internal controls. Conversely, values that foster respect for human dignity, justice, truthfulness, sense of responsibility, care, benevolence and concern for the common good beyond individual interests can promote and develop integrity within the organization. Organizational leaders play a critical role in establishing a “values based climate” (Grojean et al. 2004 ).

Factors Related to Vision and Exercise of Power

Power can be seen as the responsibility of serving the community with justice or as means for personal interests or even as an end in itself. This latter view was theorized by Niccolo Machiavelli 500 years ago. In Renaissance Italy, Machiavelli was giving advice to the ruler (the Prince), arguing that a ruler, who wished to maintain power, should have prudence enough to avoid certain defects and vices, but he should not always be good. This orientation is still widely used by many managers today’s (Calhoon 1969 ). The Machiavelli’s approach can incentivise or even command fraudulent actions of employees and create dysfunctions in the organization that damage the common good of the firm because such a vision of power entails certain way of its execution.

There are various ways how managers can exercise power that are detrimental to individuals and to the company as a whole. For instance, negligent use of power can result in various inefficiencies. Hereto, incompetent or inefficient managers and boards can negatively influence individual ethical behaviour within the organization that later translates into the whole company’s financial and moral performance. Further, there is a misuse of power due to the lack of wisdom in orders given from the top, which encourages misbehaviours. This could be the case of a dominant and arrogant CEO, who neither listens to nor considers other people’s views, just like Jeffrey Skilling at Enron. The arrogant use of power is another way of misusing the power. Treviño et al. ( 2014 ) provide a complex literature review on the leader’s influence, and on just and unjust treatment of other employees by managers. Soltani ( 2014 ) claims causality between ineffective boards, dominant CEOs, dysfunctional management behaviour—which we term detrimental use of power by top leaders—and the occurrence of corporate scandals and misbehaviours.

At Enron, Skilling and Fastow (the senior executives) used power to execute their risky and semi-legal strategies in two ways. First, they induced lower-level employees to take certain actions (day-to-day operations). Second, both internal and external audit were subject to Skilling’s supervision, therefore any form of concern about the company’s accounting improprieties or violations was met with rejection. At Siemens, the use of power to induce employees to pay bribes was never proved to have taken place. However, Klaus Kleinfelt, the CEO, set ambitious targets for foreign units and expected others to deliver results. At the same time, he did not use power to prevent meeting the targets through bribes (Crawford and Esterl 2006 ).

Policies and practices of recruiting top executives are another consequence of the exercise of power, which ultimately affects the whole organization. Specifically, using power may refer to hiring and dismissing certain types of individuals. Albrecht et al. ( 2015 ) suggest that fraud perpetrators recruit individuals to participate in financial statement frauds. An illustrative example is the leadership of John Gutfreund, who was the CEO of Salomon Brothers—a company that was found guilty of serious frauds in the 1990s. Gutfreund used to select ambitious, aggressive young people, and tended to give them a chance to create new departments, new products and enjoy the success they could never achieve at other firms (Sims and Brinkman 2002 ). On the other hand, the criteria by which he dismissed employees were vague and led to ambiguous performance standards. Similar situation took place at Enron, Bear Stearns, and Lehman Brothers and in many other business cases, where already at the hiring stage power was (mis)used to secure execution of ambitious targets without too much hesitation on the employees’ end.

Factors Related to Corporate Control Systems

Management control systems include goal-setting, performance measurement and evaluation, and incentive scheme design. In addition to management control, we point to other two dimensions of oversight: internal audit and corporate governance. These three dimensions should operate independently, but at the same time, internal audit should exercise effective control over management, and the corporate governance should control the internal audit. Many scholars (Hegarty and Sims 1978 , 1979 ; Jacobs et al. 2014 ; Selvaraj et al. 2016 ; Trevino 1986 ; Worrell et al. 1985 among others) agree that corporate control systems have a strong influence on individual behaviour, for good or for bad. These systems are aimed at aligning the interests of individuals with the interests of the organization. Goal congruence assumes that “the actions people are led to take in accordance with their perceived self-interest are also in the best interest of the organization” (Anthony and Govindarajan 2003 ).

Soltani ( 2014 ) points to three factors related to corporate control systems as the main causes of corporate wrongdoing: inefficient corporate governance and control mechanisms, distorted incentive schemes and ineffective boards. Treviño and Youngblood ( 1990 ) suggest that the locus of control and rewards, which results from certain control systems and incentives plans, tends to indirectly influence the individual’s decision making process. When the goal-setting is limited to economic objectives and there are strong incentives to meet these objectives without any concern for ethical values, the influence of control systems on individual behaviour is limited (Rosanas and Velilla 2005 ). The process of control is particularly imperfect when “the organizational goal is difficult to measure, possibly somewhat ambiguous, or even fuzzy” (Rosanas and Velilla 2005 ). In consequence, the complexity of goals depends on the type of organizational unit or job. Abid and Ahmed ( 2014 ) stress the importance of the control system, suggesting that poor internal controls are among the prominent causes of corporate collapses.

Lack of reasonable controls leads to the situations like the well-known Enron scandal: the freedom of Fastow (the CFO) to make independent decisions to engage in fraudulent accounting without any efficient control. At Enron, the management style, evaluation and remuneration system, and the direction of the operational decisions taken by top management created a certain informal Decalogue for all employees (Weiss 2014 , 28–29). The company boasted a 64-page Code of Ethics underpinning a formal control system that laid out accepted behaviours. It was very generic however, with no clear instructions on activities after closing the deals, and there was no effective internal audit that would regulate individual employees’ actions (Healy and Palepu 2003 ).

Rewards and punishment should also be discussed in conjunction with control. The perceived opportunity—one of the three reasons for committing a fraud in the W.S. Albrecht’s ( 2014 ) “Fraud Triangle”—is related to the ‘carrot’ element of the control systems: rewards. Yet, it does not encompass the ‘stick’ element: compliance measures and the subsequent punishment. Abid and Ahmed ( 2014 ) address the latter component, pointing to poor controls as one of the empirically verified causes of corporate wrongdoing. An example of a clearly defective incentives and compliance system is the ‘carrot-and-stick’ approach used at Enron. On the carrot side, Enron’s employees were evaluated based on how much value they created for the company (with the risk of being made redundant for those ranked in the bottom 20%). Their remuneration was predominantly based on a bonus, which fostered internal pressures. The compensation plan consisted of the regular salary ($150–200 thousand on average), and bonuses as handsome as $1 million. They were awarded based on the trading profits generated by specific individuals. An incentive plan with strong emphasis on meeting the targets led to high personnel turnover. Employees pursued short term financial (personal) gains to get rich and after 2–3 years tended to leave the company (Sims and Brinkmann 2003 ).

Factors Related to Internal Network of Influences

In any corporate setting there are links, interdependences and interactions among individuals and groups. Some networks are formally established, some are rather informal. Within groups of people above a certain size, and when responsibility is not explicitly assigned, there is a tendency for diffusion of responsibility—a socio-psychological phenomenon whereby a person is less likely to take responsibility for action or inaction when others are present (Darley and Latane 1968 ). Diffusion rarely occurs in pairs, but drastically increases within groups of three and more (Leary and Forsyth 1987 ). Thus, even though individual moral agency is unquestionable, it is often difficult to blame specific persons when they remain in a complex network of interrelations. Additionally, the stronger the fragmentation of decision-making and action and the diffusion of knowledge are in a corporate setup, the more difficult it is to ascribe responsibility to particular individuals (Boatright 2004 ). And again, strong fragmentation and diffusion tend to occur in more intricate interrelations. Therefore, deliberation on moral responsibility requires consideration of interactive, mutually influential exchange between the organization (group) and individuals (its constituent elements) (Yates 1997 ).

Individuals tend to take specific decisions because they are in a complex network of interrelations. At the same time, individuals are the creators of the organizational links, interdependences and interactions, and so they initiate the formal and informal structures they later operate within. Interrelations within these structures condition personal behaviour for good or for bad. Painter-Morland ( 2007 ) describes such structures of relationships as “a complex adaptive system”, pointing to the fact that individuals tend to adapt to the expectations of others (internally and externally). The characteristics and intensity of links, interdependences and interactions among individuals and groups differ across organizations and specific situations—and probably, the degree of intensity of these elements—determines whether the influence of the network on personal behaviour is weaker or stronger.

Factors Related to Organizational Culture

Organizational culture can be understood as shared beliefs, values, and practices, and is built up by leadership and interactions among people within the organization. In other words, it is “a pattern of shared and stable beliefs and values that are developed within the company across time” (Gordon and DiTomaso 1992 ); or more simply, “the way we do things around here” (Deal and Kennedy 1982 ). Drawing from Goodpaster’s reasoning on the identifiability of a company’s culture ( 2007 ), Gibson ( 2011 ) describes organizational culture as “both action-guiding and thought-guiding environment” which consists of procedures, policies, goals, norms and corporate values. Moore and Gino argue that others, through their actions or inaction, help to establish a standard for ethical behaviour of a person ( 2013 p. 57). This is how the organizational culture—which later shapes the individual’s course of action within an organization—is built. At the same time, Gibson ( 2011 ) perceives the existence of two-way interrelation between individuals and organizations: “corporations actively participate in shaping a person’s moral agency, and hence moral outlook, and, reciprocally, the organization may be shaped by its members through a continuing negotiation of values” (Gibson 2011 ). Therefore, we suggest that corporate culture and individual behaviour are mutually causal in an organizational context. In the Barclays case, submitting untrue interest rates was a common, regular practice that was later qualified as ‘accepted culture’ in most of the banks that took part in the process (these were ‘the rules’ of the Libor submission ‘game’) (“Behind the Libor Scandal” 2012 ). On the other end, the very same culture was then shaping everyday decisions and actions of particular individuals involved in the submission process.

It is hardly surprising that culture is believed to be the most important factor that crafts ethical decision-making (Sims and Brinkman 2002 ; Sims and Brinkmann 2003 ). Pierce and Snyder ( 2008 ) find that employees switching job locations almost immediately conform to the local culture, in particular to organizational norms of unethical behaviour. Culture becomes, therefore, inherent to an organization. Numerous scholars who support this position compare culture to corporate identity (French 1984 ; Ladd 1984 ), and emphasize that identity is built over time and is not necessarily influenced by people leaving and newcomers entering the community.

Notably, organizational culture tends to evolve in time. It originates, in fact, from the decisions, actions or attitudes of particular individuals who acted in the past as agents of the corporation (Ashman and Winstanley 2007 ). Hence, psychological constructs that are attributed to corporations, such as values, personality, conscience, and identity, stem from particular individuals.

A good organizational culture promotes morally correct decisions (Chen et al. 1997 ) and vice-versa. Organizational culture played a paramount role in all of the financial scandals we analysed, such as Enron, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Barclays or Siemens.

Factors Related to Internal and Competitive Pressures

Individuals can be pushed to certain actions by internal motivation or external stimulus. The latter can in the form of pressure to produce results or certain outcomes either from the top or from the peers. In the W.S. Albrecht’s ( 2014 ) “Fraud Triangle” one of the dimensions relates to some kind of perceived pressure. We observe that this perceived pressure was evident in the cases of analysed corporate scandals, and most probably played an important role in individual behaviour.

Internal pressures towards employees to get results generally come primarily from the top. If adequate ethical guideline is not provided, such pressures can lead to pursuing company’s targets “at any cost”, what results in massive corporate scandals. At Enron, for instance, there was heavy internal competition and strong pressure on results, even at the expense of stretching the rules. The subprime crisis serves as an excellent example thereof too. In companies like Bear Stearns or Lehman Brothers there was strong pressure on results, along with a culture of risk-taking that grew from company’s trading operations (Maxey et al. 2008 ). Corporate policies, shaped by business practice, favoured target-oriented decision at all costs. Whereas the lower-level employees were ‘encouraged’ to take part in massive securitization by the specific incentive systems and by the example of company’s leaders, the higher-level executives faced the whole network of interrelated pressures: lenders wishing to sell more loans, speculative investors eager to suppress rational assessment of the situation for the sake of financial gains, shareholders striving for equity gains, and finally other financial institutions following the same path of profit making.

Quite often top management is also under heavy pressure to increase profits, and indirectly to boost company’s share price that comes from shareholders. Recent Libor manipulation scandal provides empirical evidence on numerous internal pressures at different levels. Barclays bank executives were pressed by shareholders to improve performance, particularly during the 2007–2008 credit crunch, when the best strategy for boosting the bottom line was to understate borrowing costs through manipulating Libor rate (Mollenkamp and Whitehouse 2008 ). Further internal pressures shaped everyday decisions and actions of individuals—Barclays’ employees (submitters) were again and again pushed by other employees (traders) to report untrue rates, something reported by several journalists (“Behind the Libor Scandal” 2012 ). Additionally, Barclays’ employees were pressured by the system of other submitting banks to take part in the unfair Libor forming process. On the one hand, they competed with other banks, and on the other hand it was a necessary cooperation to achieve a joint aim. A remark of one RBS trader in Singapore to a Deutsche Bank trader from August 19, 2007, illustrates how entangled the whole system was: “It’s just amazing how Libor fixing can make you that much money or lose if opposite. It’s a cartel now in London.” (Tan et al. 2012 ).

Additionally, in all of the cases we reflected upon, we see that internal pressures are dependent on the internal network of influences, and vice versa. Submitting untrue interest rates would not have been possible if not for the close informal links, interdependencies and interactions between top executives, traders, treasury managers and bank’s submitters, both within the bank and across all leading banks participating in the Libor formation process.

Factors Related to External Influences

The last factor encompasses influences upon the organization (and thus upon its managers and lower level employees) that arise from the legal, political, social and cultural context. External influences are diverse types of external pressures that affect those who run the organization. They originate from interrelations and interactions of the members of the company with people and institutions constituting a firm’s immediate environment. Those external agents, such as banks or auditors, are often necessary for company’s activity. The legal system and regulatory environment also have a material impact on internal agents (Ekici and Onsel 2013 ). Failure of the auditor, in addition to accounting irregularities, to appear to be among main causes of corporate frauds studied by Soltani ( 2014 ). Additionally, culture and social demands can be treated as external influences, for good or for bad.

Individuals and institutions who interact with a company have their own intentions and goals. In certain situations, these interests or goals can induce specific (also unethical) actions of the company. In each analysed scandal, the fraudulent company remained in a network of interrelations with a number of external entities (e.g., Enron and Arthur Andersen, investment banks and other financial institutions in the subprime crisis, Barclays bank, other banks manipulating Libor and financial supervision bodies). Importantly, we observe that the misbehaviour of individuals within the fraudulent organization is often affected, encouraged, or sanctioned by actions and pressures from external individuals, institutions and frameworks, which jointly comprise the broader business environment of the firm. For instance, in the Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers case, the whole financial system demonstrated evident pressures and influences. Both investment banks’ collapses would not have happened if there was no bubble of subprime lending, which encompassed a number of institutions within the value chain of issuing the subprime mortgage-backed securities. The government and its policies pushed for home ownership. Careless mortgage clients took on obligations beyond their credit capability. Mortgage brokers, banks and insurers made massive lending possible and pushed for creating high-risk overleveraged financial products for investors, who pursued handsome returns. Last but not least, rating agencies contributed to the system by “rating laundering” (McLean and Nocera 2010 p. 122), and were “essential cogs in the wheel of financial destruction” and “key enablers of the financial meltdown” (Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission 2010 ). Together, all these institutions created an environment of interdependencies with mutual pressures exerted onto each other.

Some interrelations between an organization and external entities are particularly sensitive and can play a vital role in preparing the ground for scandals and misbehaviours. There are institutions which provide services that should be objective and serve the interests of the society, but in practice they are “aid and abet” institutions, i.e., they assist other companies in committing a crime by words or conduct. Boatright ( 2004 ) particularly emphasizes the key role of institutions with the gatekeeper function in preventing corporate wrongdoing. Due to the auditing and monitoring function, the gatekeepers have broader knowledge about company’s operations and performance than shareholders or an average employee (Boatright 2004 ). Gatekeepers are expected to monitor corporate actions, and hence should also be accountable and responsible for the scandals together with the fraudulent company (Coffee Jr. 2002 ; Ganuza and Gomez 2007 ). In Enron and Andersen case, unlike in the subprime crisis, external influences were not in form of external pressures but rather enablers of Enron managers’ misbehaviours. The parity of authority and responsibility that is discussed on corporate level (Stephen et al. 2010 ) is also problematic when one analyses cases that involve corporations and the government, when duties, deeds and responsibility tend not to go hand in hand.

Probably the biggest challenge regarding this constituent is insuring the independence of both company’s managers and external entities like auditors or rating agencies (Bazerman and Gino 2012 ). Often, there is a persistent conflict-of-interest situation (Sezer et al. 2015 ) because such entities have financial incentives to participate in or facilitate client’s misbehaviours. At the same time, they have great direct (bound to their function) and indirect (as an external observer) potential to prevent misconduct (Gino et al. 2009 ). Thus, although the role of the corporation in changing external factors that facilitate internal wrongdoing may be not too high, external influences should still be analysed in each case.

We conclude that the network of interrelations between the company and external parties can diminish individual responsibility; although in some cases it can be difficult to precisely determine the scope and strength of such influence.

The Notion of the “Organizational Moral Structure”

The identified seven groups of organizational factors that affect individual behaviour within organization comprehensively embrace the factors described by other scholars and are consistent with factors latent in the cited cases studies. Reflecting more thoroughly on these factors we discover certain connections among them.

Vision and exercise of power is closely related with values and character of the leader. A leader with a sense of justice and with a character in which justice is a significant trait, is likely to avoid a misuse of power. Other virtues shaping leader’s character can contribute to the use of power that strengthens common good. Practical wisdom and courage help lessen negligence in using the power, humility helps reduce the arrogant use of power by listening people and asking for an appropriate advice. Leader’s values along with vision and exercise of power affect the design and implementation of the corporate control systems which can foster misbehaviours. Internal network of influences and organizational culture are also related to values and character of leaders, and to the decisions taken by managers in the process of executing their power.

Boatright uses the Enron case to illustrate how top executives used their power to create work environment promoting wrongdoing. Additionally, he argues that Enron’s case involved serious injustice because some top executives, who had inflicted great financial and intangible losses on investors and employees, did not suffer adequate personal consequences (Boatright 2004 p. 9). Notably, these executives indeed had the means to change the course of action. There is empirical evidence that top executives committed to ethics tend to invest in ethics programs, policies, and structures (Weaver et al. 1999 ). Similarly, corporate leaders play a significant role in fostering values and shaping organizational culture (Schein 2010 ). Gibson argues that corporate culture influences individual ethical behaviour but, on the other hand, culture itself is shaped by the manager’s decisions and behaviour, and is further developed and fostered by regular employees: “corporations actively participate in shaping a person’s moral agency, and hence moral outlook, and, reciprocally, the organization may be shaped by its members through a continuing negotiation of values” (Gibson 2011 ).

Internal and competitive pressures are highly interdependent and empower each other. Power can be used to increase internal pressures without paying too much attention to the means used to obtain results. To this point, the well-known Milgram’s experiment on obedience to authority (Milgram 1974 ) can be mentioned. Milgram found that about 65% of subjects who performed the task required of them, and who followed immoral orders, did not see themselves as responsible. Milgram concluded that obeying a legitimate authority influences other people’s behaviour beyond their own moral conscience. In such circumstances, some individuals see themselves as merely an instrument for carrying out the orders of others—an “agentic shift” (Milgram 1974 ).

The impact of external influences on individual behaviour within an organization is also linked to the leaders’ values and character and to the incentives established within the internal control systems. Noteworthy, leaders’ values, vision and exercise of power and corporate culture determines to what extent external pressures are affecting individual ethical behaviours within an organization.

Corporate culture and individual behaviour seem mutually influential in organizational context. More specifically, leaders shape corporate culture by promoting certain behaviours in day-to-day practice. Then, the established corporate culture affects back the ethical behaviour of the new hires, new leaders’ values, the contemporaneous internal network of interrelations and control systems. To this point, organizational culture can affect leader’s values while strong external pressures can make leaders re-consider their values. Actually, the interdependence of factors is a complex phenomenon and a more thorough study thereof exceeds the scope of this paper. For our purpose, it is sufficient to acknowledge that a certain interrelation among the seven groups of factors exists and that they are not isolated in contributing to corporate misbehaviours.

Conditional on acknowledging the existence of the seven groups of organizational factors and their interrelation, one can talk about a certain “structure” that influences individual moral behaviour within an organization. We term this the “Organizational Moral Structure”.

Contrary to the fierce ongoing debate on ascribing moral responsibility to either individuals or corporations, the concept of the OMS shifts the centre of controversy. We focus on the individual responsibility, which is inherent to personal behaviour, although attenuated in certain degree due to the influence of the OMS. However, those who have an actual power to handle and shape the elements of the OMS, for good of for bad, bear moral responsibility for affecting the behaviour of others (see different types of responsibility in e.g., Melé 2019  pp. 67–70).

This claim is aligned with and partially inspired by the category of “structures of sin” taken from Catholic moral theology. A short explanation of this concept can help explain what we understand as the OMS.

As Pope John Paul II emphasizes, “[i]n not a few cases such external and internal factors may attenuate, to a greater or lesser degree, the person’s freedom and therefore his responsibility and guilt. But it is a truth of faith, also confirmed by our experience and reason, that the human person is free. This truth cannot be disregarded in order to place the blame for individuals’ sins on external factors such as structures, systems or other people. Above all, this would be to deny the person’s dignity and freedom, which are manifested—even though in a negative and disastrous way—also in this responsibility for sin committed.” ( 1984 n. 16) Accordingly, John Paul II holds that there is personal responsibility in wrongdoing—a “sin” in theological terms, and he discards the existence of collective responsibility or “social sin.” “A sin, in the proper sense, is always a personal act, since it is an act of freedom on the part of an individual person and not properly of a group or community” (John Paul II (Pope) 1984 n. 16). This is in line with the Aristotelian view that responsibility can be properly ascribed only to a moral agent, i.e. someone who possesses a capacity for decision—a certain kind of election resulting from deliberation: “The object of choice being one of the things in our own power which is desired after deliberation, choice will be deliberate desire of things in our own power; for when we have reached a judgment as a result of deliberation, we desire in accordance with our deliberation.” (Aristotle 1998 bk. III, ch.3) Thus, responsibility “cannot be disregarded in order to place the blame for individuals’ sins on external factors such as structures, systems or other people [...] this would be to deny the person’s dignity and freedom, which are manifested-even though in a negative and disastrous way-also in this responsibility for sin committed.” (John Paul II (Pope) 1984 n. 16) However, the late Pontiff recognizes that individuals may be conditioned, incited and influenced by numerous powerful external factors. Specifically, “[i]f the present situation can be attributed to difficulties of various kinds, it is not out of place to speak of “structures of sin,“ which […], are rooted in personal sin, and thus always linked to the concrete acts of individuals who introduce these structures, consolidate them and make them difficult to remove. Thus, they grow stronger, spread, and become the source of other sins, and so influence people’s behaviour.” (John Paul II (Pope) 1987 n. 36). The Pope points to two main causes of these structures: “[o]n the one hand, the all-consuming desire for profit, and on the other, the thirst for power, with the intention of imposing one’s will upon others. In order to characterize better each of these attitudes, one can add the expression: ‘at any price.’” (John Paul II (Pope) 1987 n. 37)Although all of the above quotations refer to a sin or to wrongdoing, mirroring arguments can be applied to good behaviour. Consequently, we extrapolate from the notion of the “structures of sin” to the “structures of virtue” and, in more generic terms, the concept of “moral structures” arises.

“Moral structures” include all kind of factors that excerpt certain influence or pressure on an individual. In the organizational context, it motivates our proposition of the “Organizational Moral Structure” that we define as the set of organizational factors that condition, incite or influence good or bad moral behaviour within the organization . We call these factors underlying constituents. Following previous findings, in Table 1 . we explain the OMS through its seven constituencies, accompanied by a short explanation.

OMS and Humanistic Management: Managers in Shaping the OMS

Humanistic management—shortly introduced at the beginning of this paper—is a movement developed mainly after 2009 (Dierksmeier 2016 ; Melé 2016 ; Pirson 2017 ; Spitzeck et al. 2009 ; von Kimakowitz et al. 2011 among others), although one can track its antecedents back to the beginnings of management and to the thinkers like Mary Parker Follett, and others (Melé 2003 , 2013 ). Humanistic management is generally presented as an alternative paradigm to the prevalent techno-economic or ‘economistic’ paradigm that has been guiding the twentieth-century management theory and practice, and even now is accepted by many. Humanistic management is based on a deeper knowledge of a human being. Some (Dierksmeier 2016 ; Pirson 2017 ) emphasised that humanistic management focuses on protecting human dignity and promoting well-being. Melé suggests that management can be called humanistic when its outlook emphasizes the human condition and is oriented to the development of human virtue, in all its forms, to its fullest extent (Melé 2003 ). Spitzeck et al. ( 2009 ) link humanism in business with the development of a responsible business.

Since humanistic management strives to protect and promote dignity and human flourishing, thereby it should contribute to eliminating misbehaviours and promoting good behaviours and to the responsible business. Managers who follow it, should be sensible to all factors that in positive or negative way can influence individual moral behaviour. For this purpose, the OMS offers a frame of reference. By no means, is the OMS a model of humanistic management nor a checklist of key elements to define a humanistic management, since this is more than this. Yet, hopefully the OMS becomes a valuable framework for reflecting on crucial organizational elements with an influence on good or bad behaviour.

Importantly, we argue that the seven OMS constituents with influence on individual behaviour remain within the managers’ sphere of influence. The natural question that follows is what managers, especially the top executives, can do to shape the elements of the OMS to promote good moral behaviour of employees and to prevent their misbehaviours. Managers’ capacity to, and the resulting responsibility for shaping some of the OMS constituents is clear and obvious. Regarding other constituents, further reflection is necessary. Given the insights for the cases and our theoretical proposition we learn more about the managerial capacity to change the OMS towards fostering good behaviours.

Leader’s Values and Character

This constituent of the OMS is anchored in the personality of those who are leading the company, and it directly depends on their will. In many recent scandals top executives demonstrated practicing rather egoistic ethics, which is rooted in the value maximization ideology. Once value maximization becomes primary objective and the driver of actions, there is no more room for the concern for others, their dignity and well-being, except for what is required by law. Stakeholders’ interests are only satisfied if it contributes to the bottom line. We also find the lack of virtues and direct unethical behaviour at the top.

Value commitments play a pivotal role in creating a positive OMS because it is the top management who have the formal status and practical capacity to influence organizational decisions and actions (Finkelstein and Hambrick 1990 ). Since the Enron scandal, especially after the successful prosecution of Enron executives in 2003, the link between ethical philosophy and management behaviour has been ever converging. Premeaux ( 2009 ) reports that ethical behaviour has been more in line with ethical rhetoric ever since, as the high-profile prosecutions, convictions, and jail sentences may have impressed on managers that was the time to incorporate ethics into business decisions. Noteworthy, a sound ethical philosophy with real concern for human dignity and well-being (of its followers) nourished by a leader’s moral character and coherent behaviour could be very effective for fostering good behaviour within the organization (Bormann 2017 ). In the same line, some findings show a positive relationship between ethical leadership and ethical pro-organizational behaviour. In such cases, employees are willing to work towards the benefit of their organization; yet this is conditioned by the degree to which the subordinates experience identification with their supervisor (Miao et al. 2013 ). Against this backdrop, we argue that managers need to recognize that their values and character can contribute to humanistic management provided they incorporate ethical philosophy into their decisions and actions that are directly affecting individuals within their organization.

Vision and Exercise of Power

Vision entails certain sense of power, but the bottom line is how this power is used. The Machiavellian orientation, which considers that power is an end in itself, is not a way to promote ethical behaviour. In many practical cases one can observe that such an approach leads to unethical decisions of those in power, but also has a detrimental effect on the individual behaviour of other employees. An alternative view entails that a firm is seen as a community of persons. As a result, the power is a mean used to provide the best service to the community, and is oriented towards acting with integrity (Melé 2012 ).

The vison and exercise of power have the responsibility to serve both the company and the society, and to be oriented towards doing good. Power within an organization defined this way fosters ethical behaviour, but the contrary is also probably true. First, Tepper ( 2000 ) provides evidence that abusive supervision is associated with lower job and life satisfaction, lower normative and affective commitment, higher continuance commitment, conflict between work and family, psychological distress, and often makes people resign from their jobs. We see this as a serious threat to employees’ dignity and well-being. Then, Hannah et al. ( 2013 ) develop and test a model that links abusive type of supervision to the subsequent ethical intentions and behaviour of followers. They find negative relation between abusive supervision and the followers’ moral courage and their identification with the organization’s core values. Thereupon, we are inclined to suggest that abusive use of power can have implications for individual moral behaviour. Importantly, managers are capable of directing the vision, but even more so they do have the physical capacity to exercise the power towards creating an OMS that protects and promotes of dignity and well-being of their subordinates. To do so, they foremost need to revise current power dynamics and then replace detrimental uses of power with the ones that enable employees to take ethical decisions and exercise ethical actions.

Corporate Control Systems

These systems can be an extremely powerful tool for reinforcing employees’ behaviour, one way or another. The main point here is to realize the importance of executive leaders’ role in developing corporate control systems—the criteria to perform employees’ evaluation, along with the system of rewards and punishment to reinforce normatively appropriate conduct—in organizations (Treviño et al. 2000 ). Specifically, top managers are the ones who practically decide about how such systems are designed, communicated and implemented.

Setting hyper-inflated targets and then using corporate control systems to guarantee that everyone works towards these common goals, seems a common practice. In 2014, Toshiba overstated its profits by more than 1.2 billion dollars, or about one-third of the total figure reported, in order to meet the (otherwise unrealistic) targets that the top management had established for the company and its subunits. According to the New York Times , there were problems in “virtually all corners of its business, which encompasses products stretching from refrigerators to nuclear power plants” (Soble 2015b ). The same newspaper also reports that Hisao Tanaka, the serving chief executive, acknowledged that the company had engaged in ‘inappropriate accounting,’ but said that this had not been done intentionally. He also denied that he had ever told subordinates to exaggerate the profitability of their divisions. How then did it occur in “all corners of its business?” According to Melé et al. ( 2017 ) such situation is related to the performance measurement and reward systems. “Taking such measures triggered by the control system, they fostered unethical practices (lying to obtain an economic advantage) and damaged the whole company.” (Melé et al. 2017 p. 610) Similar story could be told about Siemens employees who were repeatedly referring to bribing to reach internal targets (Dietz and Gillespie 2012 ). Notably, it was at the top executives’ discretion to decide how those control systems have been designed and functioned for years. Therefore, managers should be constantly revising and improving this OMS constituent: company’s goals, incentive schemes, performance measurement and evaluation systems, if they want to foster good behaviour of individual employees. In doing so, they secure and promote employees’ well-being and dignity, as e.g., Lau and Martin-Sardesai ( 2012 ) report that the design of evaluation measures affects the degree to which employees feel treated with dignity. This way top executives can contribute to humanistic management.

Importantly, corporate governance has also its role in favouring a certain type of individual behaviour within an organization. Corporate governance is about establishing policies and controlling the management; yet it fails in cases of distorted incentive schemes or ineffective boards. Inefficient corporate governance leads to an improper control of the top executives which, historically resulted in serious corporate frauds and scandals.

Internal Network of Influences

Managers are inevitably a key element of many networks of influences within an organization. However, some links and interactions among individuals and groups are independent of the managers. In any of these cases, top executives still need to make sure that in both formal and informal networks, the responsibility is properly ascribed, and that individuals do not adapt to the group expectations at the expense of individual moral deliberation. This, we see as a particularly challenging task for top executives. An OMS that fosters good behaviour of individuals is the one where the influence of the network on personal behaviour is either strong and positive or none and allows for individual moral reasoning. Managers rarely can contribute thereto directly. They should foremost try to deeply understand network and group dynamics, and then promote individual responsibility and mutual support of individuals to do good.

Organizational Culture

Leadership is crucial in shaping organizational culture (Schein 2010 ) and ethical climate (Mulki et al. 2009 ). The experience of recent scandals such as Enron, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Barclays or Siemens shows that top executives played a paramount role in creating an unethical culture inside the organization. Diamond, the Barclays CEO, himself defined the bank’s culture as “how people behave when you think no one is watching” (Myners 2012 ). As noted, in the Toshiba case, ‘accounting irregularities’ seem to have become a part of the corporate culture that was either cultivated or, at least, accepted by top management. The same seems true for culture of bribery at Siemens. In all these cases, a number of top executives were dismissed or prosecuted (or left), even though they did not participated directly in wrongdoing (Dougherty 2007 ; Soble 2015a ). Kenneth Lay, the Chairman of Enron, was not directly involved in accounting manoeuvres. He even testified in court that he had not been aware of the fraud. However, as an individual, he bears the moral responsibility that came with his position for the lack of proper supervision over other employees’ actions, and for allowing the culture of greed, arrogance, ruthlessness, corruption to spread throughout Enron (Sims and Brinkmann 2003 ). Therefore, managers, even though not directly pressing other individual’s to unethical decisions and actions, bear indirect responsibility for corporate misconduct related to the culture they promote internally. Conversely, their position enables them to promote a culture that actively incentivises individuals within the company to do good. Yet, we recognize that one ethical manager is most often not enough to change the corporate culture supported by other unethical managers (Treviño and Brown 2005 ).

Importantly, it’s not the officially declared culture that matters but the practiced one. Many official culture statements mention human dignity and well-being as its cornerstones. Yet, it is the managers who actually make the corporate culture alive by the way they run the organization. For instance, one could have read glamorous stories about Bear Stearns’s culture on its website, yet in practice, its managers developed and cultivated a culture of risk-taking that determined the employees’ approach towards doing business at all levels, a culture of pursuing financial gains without any single reflection on how they do it or how the employees feel about it. Managers who strive to create an ethical OMS need to reflect on what is declared and what is practiced on daily basis within their organization, and positively contribute to the latter. In doing so, they are capable of incentivising good behaviour: following Zwetsloot and Leka ( 2010 ), corporate culture is a variable to be manipulated for the promotion of health and well-being of employees because it has a significant, yet often unnoticed influence on the decisions and behaviour of individuals. At the same time, this reinforces humanistic management in an origination.

Internal and Competitive Pressures

Most of internal pressures that push individuals to certain (unethical) actions come from the top. But when employees continue to operate under pressure from the top, in time they also start to exert pressures on each other. In Enron, there was heavy internal competition and strong pressure on results among the employees, even at the expense of stretching the rules (Sims and Brinkmann 2003 ). In Barclays, mid-level employees (the submitters) were pushed by other mid-level employees (the traders) to submit the untrue rates (“Behind the Libor Scandal” 2012 ). Here, again, management has the greatest responsibility. Top executives, who care about promoting OMS that has a positive effect on individual behaviour, should not only refrain from exerting pressure towards misbehaviour of others, but also seek to identify and eliminate any other type of pressure that can effectively push individuals to unethical actions. The latter is not in the immediate set of management’s duties. It is, however, key in ascertaining that individuals can exercise their freedom and ethical judgement in decision-making, which is one of the conditions of humanistic management.

External Influences

External institutions can exert significant influence on individuals within an organization, but most often those individuals affected are managers themselves. In such cases, it is difficult for individual managers to oppose to the whole system.

Another example of a well-established way to exert pressures on top executives in public companies is the quarterly financial reporting system of communication with financial community. Investors press for immediate returns, while financial analysts are a threat to the managers because of a potentially negative recommendations (to investors), which, in turn, affect the share price and company’s cost of capital. However, this is not entirely a ‘catch 22’ situation. Managers with moral imagination can reverse the focus using, and committing to, a solid and convincing long-term philosophy. This is the case of Bill George, who was the CEO of Medtronic during 1991–2001. He stood for a mission-driven company, for a values-cantered organization and for an adaptable business strategy. He actively opposed to the short-termism and to maximizing shareholder value on quarterly basis. He believed that “sustained growth in shareholder value may be the end result, but it cannot be the sole purpose” (van de Ven 2001 ). This is an example of management that prioritises long term common good of the company and its employees over short-term material interests. This way, Medtronic employees neither needed to go beyond what they considered ethical for the sake of satisfying the interest of company’s investors, nor were internally conflicted regarding what ‘doing good’ meant. This type of leadership promotes human dignity and contributes to humanistic management. But it does take great courage to oppose to the whole ecosystem in order to do good.

Finally, sometimes external influences relate to non-executive employees. Barclays’ manipulation of Libor is a good illustration thereof. Additionally to internal pressures, banks’ mid-level employees (the submitters) were pressured by the system of other submitting banks to take part in the unfair Libor forming process (Tan et al. 2012 ). It was a paradox situation: on the one hand, they competed with other banks, on the other hand, the cooperation in wrongdoing was necessary to achieve a joint aim of all submitting banks. Hereto, a manager who recognizes that external entities can exert pressures on individual employees, and who wants to foster positive impact of the OMS on individual behaviour, needs to monitor any form of external pressure coming from business ecosystem. By eliminating external elements that prevent an individual form exercising the freedom of moral judgement and decision making, such a manager contributes to the well-being and dignity of its employees.

We propose the concept of the “Organizational Moral Structure” which we define as a comprehensive framework of organizational factors that condition, incite or influence good or bad individual moral behaviour within an organization. Our findings suggest that there are seven underlying constituents of the OMS which seem interconnected: 1) leader’s values and character, 2) vision and exercise of power, 3) corporate control systems, 4) internal network of influence, 5) organizational culture, 6) internal and competitive pressures, and 7) external influences. The OMS concept endorses individual rather than corporate responsibility, but it also takes into consideration structural elements that affect and may mitigate individual responsibility. At the same time, our approach emphasizes the responsibility of those who actually handle and shape the OMS constituents (especially when they promote and contribute to the detrimental type of the OMS), that is, the corporate leaders.

The “Organizational Moral Structure” with its seven constituents (factors) provide an analytical tool for analysing, and thus better understanding of, the root causes of wrongdoing within organizations. Consequently, the OMS can be used to as practical tool that helps design organizations by contributing to prevent misbehaviours. Hereto, we recognize the pivotal role of managers who have the capability of redesigning the OMS. Although further research is needed, the OMS has the potential to foster virtuous behaviours.

The OMS framework is also important for corporate leaders as individuals, who should strive to create for themselves “relational spaces that allow for critical reflection and conversation” (Wilcox 2012 p. 95). The seven OMS constituents can help leaders reflect about themselves. This is especially relevant if, as Pitesa and Thau ( 2013 ) argue, leaders (people who are higher in power) have a lower tendency to focus on others’ (un)ethical conduct.

OMS may also be useful for teaching purposes as a framework to analyse what contributes to fraud and other misbehaviours within the organization.

Current literature on humanistic management emphasizes respect for human dignity, promoting human flourishing and working for the common good, as well as partially addresses the aspects of ethical behaviour within organizations. However, in the space of humanistic management no systematic study about the organizational moral structures existed so far. The OMS and its constituents are particularly relevant for humanistic management. In humanistic management, the OMS provides a framework for analysing and reflecting on the how the described seven constituents work in a company in practice, how they affect good behaviour and, ultimately, how they can foster humanizing organizations. Thus, the proposition of the OMS opens the door to new studies on fostering good behaviours and preventing misconduct through enhancing and redefining leader’s values and character, vision and exercise of power, corporate control systems, fostering organizational culture, channelling internal network of influence, managing internal and competitive pressures and external influences from the humanistic management perspective.

We suggest further empirical research that could be aiming at verifying the validity of the OMS model in different organizational situations and at deepening the analysis of the interdependence among constituents beyond the seminal exploration suggested here.

The intersection of the OMS and the humanistic management yields proposals for further development. Hereto, a research question arises of what humanistic management could do to incentivise positive organizational structures. The research agenda could include a prescriptive theory based on humanistic management and descriptive analyses of companies that accept humanistic management, related to managing the seven constituents.

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Roszkowska, P., Melé, D. Organizational Factors in the Individual Ethical Behaviour. The Notion of the “Organizational Moral Structure”. Humanist Manag J 6 , 187–209 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41463-020-00080-z

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Individual Differences, Intelligence, and Behavior Analysis

Ben williams.

1 University of California, San Diego

Joel Myerson

2 Washington University

Sandra Hale

Despite its avowed goal of understanding individual behavior, the field of behavior analysis has largely ignored the determinants of consistent differences in level of performance among individuals. The present article discusses major findings in the study of individual differences in intelligence from the conceptual framework of a functional analysis of behavior. In addition to general intelligence, we discuss three other major aspects of behavior in which individuals differ: speed of processing, working memory, and the learning of three-term contingencies. Despite recent progress in our understanding of the relations among these aspects of behavior, numerous issues remain unresolved. Researchers need to determine which learning tasks predict individual differences in intelligence and which do not, and then identify the specific characteristics of these tasks that make such prediction possible.

The surprising and consistent empirical finding in psychometric intelligence research is that people who do well on one mental task tend to do well on most others, despite large variations in the tests' contents… This was Spearman's (1904) discovery, and is arguably the most replicated result in all psychology. ( Deary, 2000, p. 6 )

Historically, the study of individual differences has been an area of research relatively separate from experimental psychology. While experimental psychology has focused on the processes that determine performance in specific experimental situations, the field of individual differences has studied the stable differences among people, particularly those that generalize across diverse situations. The behavioral differences that have received the most attention in this regard have been personality traits and cognitive abilities. Behavior analysis has largely ignored such differences, other than those that are explainable in terms of reinforcement history. This disregard of individual differences is puzzling, given that behavior analysts emphasize that their research focuses on the behavior of individuals rather than on group averages. After all, it is the differences among individuals that distinguish them from the average.

The disregard of individual differences also is surprising because the agenda of behavior analysis includes the analysis of behavior in educational settings, and individual differences in performance are among the most salient aspects of behavior in such settings. Careful programming of environmental contingencies often can improve educational accomplishment, although the fact remains that individuals vary widely in how effectively they deal with academic topics. Some learn and understand complex material with relative ease, whereas others labor to succeed and nevertheless frequently fail in their efforts. Given the prominence of individual differences at every level of educational endeavor, it is surprising that behavior analysts have made so little effort to understand them.

Individual differences in educational performance are strongly related to differences in intelligence, a major focus of individual-differences research. ‘Intelligence’ has multiple meanings—so many in fact, that one of the most prominent researchers in the area has argued that the term should be abandoned ( Jensen, 1998 ). Lurking within this diversity of meaning, however, are important facts that pose serious explanatory challenges to any approach to psychology that aspires to encompass the field's most basic empirical phenomena. The purpose of this article is to describe some of the most essential of these findings, and to consider their implications for a functional analysis of behavior.

Intelligence As Shared Variance

Numerous tests have been developed to help assess intelligence, including tests of vocabulary, short-term memory span, analogical reasoning, story construction from pictures, etc., with such diversity seemingly belying the usefulness of intelligence as an explanatory construct. Should the diversity of the tests putatively measuring intelligence be taken as evidence that, rather than there being one fundamental ability that distinguishes among people, there is a diverse set of cognitive skills in which people may differ? Would it be better, then, to consider these skills as separate behaviors with their own individual controlling variables? The few behaviorists who have addressed the topic of intelligence (e.g., Staats & Burns, 1981 ) have tended to adopt just such an approach, and nonbehavioral proponents of this view have had considerable popularity (e.g., Gardner, 1983 ). Such an interpretation certainly has intuitive appeal, but there is one very large elephant in the room that cannot be ignored: Performances on all of these tests, despite the obvious differences between the tests themselves, are significantly correlated with each other.

A specific example of such correlations is provided in Table 1 , which shows the correlation matrix for the 14 subtests of one of the most widely used intelligence tests, the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS-III; Psychological Corporation, 1997 ). Only 2 of the 91 correlations among the subtests are below .30. Most (74 of the 91) are in the range of .40–.70. For example, consider the correlations of the Block Design subtest with the other 13. On each trial of the Block Design test, an individual is shown a pattern and then must reconstruct that pattern using a set of colored cubes, and the total score is based on both time and accuracy. As may be seen in Table 1 , the correlations between Block Design and each of the other subtests are surprisingly similar; all but one are in the .40–.70 range (the one exception being the correlation between Block Design and Digit Span).

Correlation Matrix for the 14 Subtests from the WAIS-III.

Note: Labels in the top row correspond to the letters printed in bold in the Subtest Column.

The issue raised by the pattern of correlations shown in Table 1 is why the correlations among subtests are all so similar. For example, Block Design is as strongly related to Vocabulary as it is to the other subtests that do not involve verbal materials. It is clear that the various tests share a great deal of common variance, despite large differences in their structure and in the stimuli of which they are composed. In the intelligence literature, this common variance often is taken as evidence of general intelligence, or simply g .

The amount of shared variance, and the relative contributions of the various subtests to it, can be measured using principal components analysis or PCA. In PCA, the first principal component or general factor, which is often taken as the operational definition of g , is simply the linear combination of the standardized scores on the subtests that accounts for the greatest amount of variance. If one thinks of each individual's subtest scores as a point in a space with as many dimensions as there are subtests, then PCA weights these scores so as to minimize the sum of the squared perpendicular distances from the data points to the line corresponding to the component axis. Importantly, the weight given a specific subtest in this linear combination, which is frequently referred to as its loading on g , corresponds to the correlation between individuals' scores on that subtest and their component scores, calculated as the weighted sum of their scores on all of the subtests.

For the WAIS-III correlation matrix shown in Table 1 , the first principal component accounts for 51% of the total variance. Table 2 shows the loadings of the various WAIS-III subtests on the first principal component. As can be seen, the highest loading is for the Vocabulary subtest (.83), and the lowest is for Digit Span (.60), indicating that relative to the other subtests, the first principal component (or g ) explains the most variance in Vocabulary scores and the least variance in Digit Span scores. Many researchers in the area of individual differences agree that the fundamental theoretical question about the nature of intelligence is how g should be conceptualized so as to capture the fact that the majority of variance is shared by such a diverse collection of subtests, while at the same time accounting for the differences among the subtests in terms of their contributions to this shared variance.

Task Descriptions and g-loadings for the Verbal and Performance Subtests of the WAIS-III.

What does this mean from the standpoint of behavior analysis? Simply put, it means that an individual's behavior (i.e., a person's test performance relative to that of other individuals) is consistent from subtest to subtest. In principle, an above-average overall score on an intelligence test could indicate that an individual is far above average on a few subtests and below average on the rest, yet this is relatively rare. The universally positive correlations among the various subtests mean that people who are above average overall tend to be above average on all of the subtests and people who are below average overall tend to be below average on all of the subtests.

In fact, this consistency in individual behavior is the heart of the matter—it is what is responsible for the universally positive correlations among the subtests and the relative similarity of their loadings on the first principal component or g . These three findings—individual consistency, positive intercorrelations, and roughly similar subtest loadings—are essentially one, and each of the three findings follows mathematically from either of the other two. Together they represent the essence of the puzzle of intelligence, which is, “Why do some people tend to be good at lots of things while others tend to be bad at lots of things? And why does this tendency to be consistently good or bad apply more to some things than others?” The “things” referred to here are exemplified by the various subtests, but these subtests are of interest because they presumably stand for many other behaviors in everyday life, such as various tasks that need to be done, and problems that need to be solved.

Varieties of Intelligence

One way to approach the issue of the consistency in individual differences in performance is to compare subtests with high g loadings with subtests that have low g loadings, and try to identify the critical dimensions along which these subtests differ. Interestingly, the subtests of the WAIS-III that have the highest g loadings (i.e., Vocabulary, Similarities, Information, Comprehension, and Arithmetic) are those that tap previously acquired knowledge and skills. Tests that tap previously acquired knowledge and skills are said to reflect crystallized intelligence. In contrast, tests that are designed to be as free as possible from prior knowledge, and depend only on current, on-line processing, are said to be tests of fluid intelligence, the prototypical example being the figural analogies of Raven's Progressive Matrices ( Raven, Raven, & Court, 2000 ).

When diverse batteries of subtests are subjected to factor analysis, typically two factors emerge, one a fluid factor and the other a crystallized factor, as indicated by the nature of the subtests that load on these factors ( Horn & Cattell, 1966 ). The distinction between crystallized and fluid intelligence is supported by their different functional properties, especially with respect to the differential effects of adult age. Whereas fluid intelligence begins its decline in the 20s, crystallized intelligence shows relatively little decline in healthy adults until they reach their 70s, and some tests of crystallized intelligence (e.g., vocabulary tests) even show a slight increase over this same period (for a review, see Deary, 2000 , Chapter 8). The two categories of intelligence are differentially sensitive to brain damage of various sorts, with little impairment typically evident for crystallized intelligence but major deficits for fluid intelligence. This pattern has been observed, for example, in patients with white matter lesions ( Leaper et al., 2001 ) and in those with frontal lobe lesions ( Duncan, Burgess, & Emslie, 1995 ), as well as in patients with Huntington's Disease, Parkinson's Disease, and mild Alzheimer's Disease ( Psychological Corporation, 1997 ).

The distinction between fluid and crystallized intelligence is only one of several different partitions of the total variance across different intelligence tests. Other schemes have identified other broad categories of variance (e.g., verbal/educational vs. spatial/mechanical), sometimes with additional, somewhat less broad categories such as retrieval ability and processing speed. The specific structure provided by factor analysis is somewhat arbitrary because it reflects the specific assortment of tests that are included in any given analysis. In addition, the more tests included in a given test battery, the greater the number of covariance clusters that can be identified, with each cluster signifying an ability that is partially distinct from other abilities. But regardless of the complexity of the covariance partitions and the number of factors that emerge as a result, there are always positive correlations between the factors, just as there are universally positive correlations between the individual tests and between the subtests ( Jensen, 1998 ), so that one can always identify a common factor that accounts for a major portion of the total variance (usually more than 50%).

Given that g can be extracted from any array of separate tests, a critical issue is how g factors extracted from separate test batteries are related. If the nature of the g factor were to depend on the specific composition of the test battery from which it is extracted, then g would be arbitrary and of much less theoretical interest. A recent study ( Johnson, Bouchard, Krueger, McGue, & Gottesman, 2004 ) administered three extensive, independently developed intelligence test batteries to 436 individuals and examined the correlations among g factors extracted from the three different batteries: (1) the Comprehensive Ability Battery, consisting of 14 different subtests ( Hakstian & Cattell, 1975 ); (2) a version of the Hawaii Battery, which included the Raven matrices in shortened and modified form as well as 16 other subtests ( DeFries et al., 1974 ); and (3) the original version of the WAIS, which consisted of 11 subtests ( Wechsler, 1955 ). The g factors from the three test batteries correlated .99 (!), providing strong support for the hypothesis that the shared variance captured by g represents a fundamental fact of human abilities and is not an arbitrary result of the composition of specific tests.

Explaining The Shared Variance

Is speed what is shared.

One major hypothesis regarding the consistency in individual performance that underlies g has been that it reflects individual differences in processing speed ( Jensen, 1998 ). There is growing evidence of individual consistency in speed of responding across very diverse tasks: Some people are consistently fast on most tasks, whereas others are consistently slow ( Hale & Jansen, 1994 ; Myerson, Hale, Zheng, Jenkins, & Widaman, 2003 ; Zheng, Myerson, & Hale, 2000 ). This consistency is reminiscent of that observed on intelligence tests and suggests that individual differences in the speed with which people process information could affect performance on many different psychological tests and everyday tasks.

The consistency in an individual's response times may be seen in Figure 1 , which shows individual performance on four quite different tasks: choice reaction time, letter classification, visual search, and abstract matching ( Hale & Myerson, 1993 ). Each of the four panels depicts the mean response times of a different individual plotted as a function of the average response times for the whole group of 65 undergraduates who were tested on these tasks. As may be seen, the 2 slow individuals (top panels) were slower than average in all task conditions (i.e., their data points all lie above the diagonal representing average performance) and the 2 fast individuals (bottom panels) were faster than average in all task conditions (i.e., their data points all lie below the diagonal). In addition, the size of the difference between individual and average response times (represented by the vertical distance from the diagonal) increased in an orderly fashion as the difficulty of the task increased.

Response times (RTs) for 4 individuals from Hale and Myerson (1993) plotted as a function of the group mean RT. Each panel presents data from a different individual. Data from the 5 th , 10 th , 55 th , and 60 th slowest subjects out of the 65 subjects (ranked based on their slopes) are shown in the upper left, upper right, lower left, and lower right panels, respectively. Within each panel, each data point represents performance in one experimental condition. The tasks, in order of increasing difficulty, were as follows: two-choice RT, inverted white triangles (one condition); letter classification, gray squares (three conditions); visual search, white upright triangles (four conditions); abstract matching, gray diamonds (two conditions). The dashed diagonal line represents equality; if an individual's mean RT for a particular task condition did not differ from the corresponding group mean RT (as is approximately the case for the two-choice RT task for each of the individuals shown), then the data point for that condition would fall along the equality line.

Additional data showing the same pattern from 6 different individuals as well as the fast and slow quartiles of this sample may be seen in Figures 1 and 8 of Myerson et al. (2003) . Comparable data from a separate study using seven different tasks are presented in Hale and Jansen (1994) . Taken together, these results strongly support the idea that an individual's speed is a general characteristic of that individual, and has equivalent, multiplicative effects on the time required for any information processing task, regardless of the task being performed (for more details and a formal model, see Myerson et al., 2003 ).

The potential implications of such general characteristics for differences in intelligence may be seen in Figure 2 , which depicts performance by university students and by students at a vocational college, groups that differed in average academic aptitude, plotted as a function of the average response times calculated across both groups combined ( Vernon & Jensen, 1984 ). Not only was the higher ability group faster on all of the tasks (choice reaction time, memory scanning, same/different word judgment, and synonym/antonym judgment), but also the size of the difference from average increased linearly as a function of task difficulty, just as in the Hale and Myerson (1993) data seen in Figure 1 . These data show relatively little evidence of specific strengths or weaknesses on particular tasks or in particular task conditions. Clearly, results like these are difficult to reconcile with the goal of the once-popular chronometric approach to individual differences, which strove to identify distinct cognitive processes through componential analysis of response times, and then relate individual differences in these components to differences in higher cognitive abilities (e.g., Sternberg, 1977 ).

Response times (RTs) of two different ability subgroups, university and vocational college students, plotted as a function of the combined student group mean RTs. White and gray symbols represent the data from Vernon (1983: vocational students) and Vernon and Jensen (1984: university students) , respectively. Each point represents performance in one experimental condition. The tasks, in order of increasing difficulty, were as follows: circles, choice RT (using the Jensen apparatus); octagons, Sternberg memory scanning; squares, same/different word judgment; diamonds, synonym/antonym judgment. The dashed diagonal line represents equality, that is, if one of the subgroup's mean RT for a particular task condition did not differ from the corresponding group mean RT (as is the case for the choice RT condition), then the data point for that condition would fall along the equality line. (Note: This figure was adapted with permission from Figure 2 in Myerson, Hale, Zheng, Jenkins, and Widaman, 2003 .)

One of the major proponents of the importance of processing speed for higher cognitive abilities has been Salthouse (1996) , who offered two reasons why speed should be so important. First, if you are slow to process information, and you cannot control the rate at which it is presented, then you are likely to miss information, some of which may be needed for the behavior in which you are engaged. Second, coordination between two different tasks is likely to be impaired if you are slow, because you may take so long on one task that you forget information that is needed to perform the other task.

It should be noted that the purely behavioral analyses of processing speed data presented here, as well as previous analyses reported in this journal and elsewhere (e.g., Chen, Hale, & Myerson, 2007 ; Myerson, Adams, Hale, & Jenkins, 2003 ; Myerson, Hale, Hansen, Hirschman, & Christiansen, 1989 ; Myerson, Robertson, & Hale, 2007 ), aptly illustrate the potential utility for behavior analysis of studying individual differences. As Underwood (1975) famously argued, individual differences can be thought of as natural experiments, and the results of such natural experiments can help assess the validity of theoretical constructs and models. As Underwood noted, “The whole idea behind behavioral theory is to reduce the number of independent processes to a minimum; to find that performance on two apparently diverse tasks is mediated at least in part by a single, more elementary, process is a step towards this long-range goal” (p. 133). Whereas cognitive psychologists typically assume that a set of diverse tasks of varying complexity, such as the various tasks that generated the data for the analyses presented here, involve different collections of processing components, the orderly linear relations between individual differences and group average response times on these tasks imply that the tasks primarily vary along a single dimension, which might be termed simply difficulty.

The finding that the size of individual differences varies as a simple multiplicative function of task difficulty is consistent with what would be expected if speed were the source of the shared variance on intelligence tests. Regardless of whether that claim is ultimately supported or not, however, we believe the finding stands on its own as revealing an important regularity in individual behavior, one that already has shed substantial light on the behavioral processes underlying changes observed in both child development (e.g., Fry & Hale, 1996 ) and aging (e.g., Myerson et al., 2003 ).

Or Is It Working Memory?

There can be little doubt that a substantial fraction of the variance in intelligence scores is related to measures of processing speed (for a review, see Vernon, 1983 ), but numerous investigators have questioned its adequacy as a complete account of g (e.g., Stankoff & Roberts, 1997 ). A popular alternative to processing speed as the major correlate of g is working memory capacity . Cognitive psychologists continue to disagree about specific aspects of the working memory construct, but it is generally assumed that information is maintained in a temporary memory buffer while it is being processed as well as while other information is being processed. Separate buffers for verbal and visuospatial information have been proposed, along with an executive function to organize and allocate limited attentional resources ( Baddeley, 1986 ). Various other executive functions also have been proposed, such as updating and monitoring, switching between mental sets, and inhibiting competing responses (e.g., Miyake, Friedman, Emerson, Witzi, & Howerth, 2000 ).

Many researchers assume that competition between the maintenance and processing functions of the working memory system provides the basis for the differences between individuals (e.g., Engle, Tuholski, Laughlin, & Conway, 1999 ). More capable individuals are assumed to have greater working memory “capacity” and/or a more effective attentional or executive system that allows the memory system to be less disrupted when simultaneous processing is required. It even has been suggested that reasoning ability is little more than working memory capacity ( Kyllonen & Christal, 1990 ), although this strong claim has been strenuously criticized ( Ackerman, Beier, & Boyle, 2005 ).

The importance of working memory in everyday life is exemplified by its role in reading. To comprehend what one is currently reading, one must relate the present text to the portion of the material already read. To the extent that the ability to retain prior relevant information while processing new information is deficient, the reader will need to frequently recheck the earlier material, greatly impeding the efficiency of reading and thereby limiting the actual amount learned. Not surprisingly, tests of verbal working memory strongly predict various aspects of verbal ability, including vocabulary, verbal comprehension, and the ability to infer word meanings from context ( Daneman & Carpenter, 1980 ; Daneman & Merikle, 1996 ).

To get a sense of what a working memory task is like, consider the “alphabet recoding” task used by Kyllonen and Christal (1990) . Subjects are presented a series of three letters and then an instruction such as “+ 2” that tells them how to transform the original letters before reporting the transformed series. If the letters were “C-K-W,” for example, then the correct answer would be “E-M-Y.” To perform the task correctly, subjects must transform the first letter without forgetting the other two letters, then transform the second letter without forgetting either the previously transformed first letter or the untransformed third letter, and then finally transform the third letter without forgetting the previous two transformations. The alphabet span task ( Craik, 1986 ), in which subjects hear a list of words and then must recall them in alphabetical order, is another example of a working memory task involving transformations.

Dual-task procedures represent a more commonly used type of working memory test. With these procedures, to-be-remembered items are presented individually, alternating with other stimuli that must be responded to without forgetting any of the to-be-remembered items. One prominent example is the operation span task, in which words are presented alternately with simple arithmetic equations (e.g., 3+5  =  7) that must be judged for correctness. After an entire list of words and equations has been presented, the subject must recall the words in order. As may be noted, competition and interference are what distinguish all these tasks from simple short-term memory span tasks. In the case of the operation span task, for example, the equations and the words compete to control recall responses, and the process of judging the correctness of the equations also may interfere with recall. (For more detailed information about this and other working memory task procedures, see Conway et al., 2005 ; and Waters & Caplan, 2003 .)

A variety of specific executive functions have been proposed, but recent studies have failed to support the idea that they are part of a unitary executive system. For example, at least one of these putative executive functions, task switching, has been found to be unrelated to working memory span measures ( Oberauer, Süß, Wilhelm, & Sander, 2007 ). Other failures to observe predicted covariation have been reported as well, not only between different putative executive functions (e.g., Miyake et al., 2000 ; Ward, Roberts, & Phillips, 2001 ) but also between different measures of the same function (e.g., Shilling, Chetwynd, & Rabbitt, 2002 ). Thus, rather than explaining individual differences in g , the concept of executive function seems both too fuzzy and too variegated to offer a gain in explanatory parsimony over the phenomena to be explained. Even Alan Baddeley, who pioneered the concept of a working memory system with a “central executive,” has explicitly stated that the “central executive” is merely a conceptual placeholder that serves as a reminder of what remains to be explained ( Baddeley, 2001 ).

Despite these conceptual and empirical problems with the executive aspects of the working memory construct, several features seem interpretable within a behavior-analytic account, and measures based on these features may eventually be shown to be critical predictors of individual differences in g . For example, Engle and his colleagues recently proposed that the reason that working memory performance predicts fluid intelligence is not primarily because memory per se is used to solve reasoning problems; rather, it is because working memory tasks measure how well an individual's attentional processes function “under conditions of interference, distraction, or conflict” ( Kane, Conway, Hambrick, & Engle, 2007 ; Unsworth & Engle, 2005 ; see also Hasher, Lustig, & Zacks, 2007 ). This account may be compared to a description of working memory tasks from a behavioral perspective. We would say that briefly presented stimuli must continue to control appropriate recall responses even after those brief stimuli are replaced by other stimuli that control different responses; on some tasks, previously presented stimuli must also compete with self-generated stimuli resulting from covert responses (e.g., transformations). In other words, working memory tasks involve competition for control (or “attention”) among stimuli, most of which are no longer present, and it is plausible that individuals will differ substantially in the outcome of such competition, perhaps in a way that predicts their performance on intelligence tests.

An analysis of individual differences in working memory in terms of individual differences in stimulus control seems achievable and clearly relevant to understanding the nature of intelligence. Recent theoretical accounts, however, have retreated from the strong view (e.g., Kyllonen & Chrystal, 1990 ) that fluid intelligence and working memory capacity are essentially isomorphic, in part because studies have shown that working memory tasks are far from perfectly correlated with intelligence (e.g., Ackerman et al., 2005 ). This means that much of the variance in g must be explained by factors other than working memory. The results of our own research in this area, discussed in the following section, suggest that competition among stimuli for control plays a role in human learning as well as in working memory, and that this broader role provides a fuller (albeit far from complete) account of individual differences in g ( Tamez, Myerson, & Hale, 2008 ; Williams & Pearlberg, 2006 ).

The Role of Learning

A remarkable feature of most recent attempts to identify the basic underlying dimensions that account for individual differences in general intelligence has been the neglect of associative learning. This neglect seems strange given the obviously important role played by associative learning in the acquisition of knowledge and skills that underlie performance on tests of crystallized intelligence (e.g., the Vocabulary and General Information subtests of the WAIS-III). In part, the neglect of associative learning may be a consequence of the view that knowledge and skill acquisition are the result of an inferential process rather than the result of forming associative connections. For example, the meaning of a new word is commonly inferred from the context in which it is encountered, rather than being learned from flash cards or by looking it up in the dictionary. Regardless of how learning is conceived, however, crystallized intelligence obviously reflects prior learning, and presumably also reflects individual differences in the efficiency of the learning process.

In addition, much recent research on intelligence seems out of touch with the goal of predicting educational achievement, which was the original purpose of intelligence tests and is still their major application. Recently, however, Luo, Thompson, and Detterman (2006) examined the extent to which basic information-processing tasks could replace conventional intelligence tests as predictors of children's performance on academic achievement tests. Luo et al. used multiple regression and structural equation models to analyze data from two large, representative samples: a normative sample of nearly 5,000 children, ages 6–19 years, that had been used to standardize the multi-faceted Woodcock-Johnson Cognitive Abilities and Achievement Tests, and a separate sample of more than 500 children, ages 6–13 years, from the Western Reserve Twin Project. For both samples, analyses showed that fluid intelligence tests could be replaced as predictors of academic achievement by measures of processing speed and working memory. In contrast, tests of crystallized intelligence could not be replaced because they explained a substantial amount of the variance in academic achievement that was not accounted for by the information-processing measures. In the Woodcock-Johnson normative sample, for example, a combination of crystallized intelligence and basic information-processing abilities accounted for more than one-half of the variance in academic achievement, of which approximately 40% was attributable to crystallized intelligence alone and approximately 45% was common to both crystallized intelligence and information processing ability ( Luo et al., 2006 ). If a major goal of intelligence testing is the prediction of academic achievement, then assessment of learning ability, which is a major determinant of crystallized intelligence, would appear to be important for achieving that goal.

It is important to note that not all types of associative learning are related to intelligence, and in fact, early studies failed to find a meaningful relation between intelligence scores and rate of learning on a variety of associative learning tasks ( Underwood, Boruch, & Malmi, 1978 ; Woodrow, 1946 ). These findings contributed to the subsequent disregard of learning by intelligence researchers, but they also may be a major clue as to the role of learning ability in performance on intelligence tests. Recently, Williams and Pearlberg (2006) replicated the low correlation between some measures of verbal learning and intelligence. They found that both paired-associate learning and free-recall list learning had correlations below .20 with Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices ( Raven, Raven, & Court, 1998 ). More complex learning tasks (e.g., learning to write computer programs; Kyllonen & Stephens, 1990 ) have produced more substantial correlations with intelligence, but because of their very complexity, neither what is being learned on such tasks, nor how it is being learned, is clearly understood.

In contrast to the weak correlations observed between traditional verbal learning tasks and intelligence tests, Williams and Pearlberg (2006) have developed a novel verbal learning task that shows a surprisingly high correlation with scores on a test of fluid intelligence. In their new task, each subject learns a set of “three-term contingencies” modeled after the basic unit of operant conditioning. More specifically, subjects see 10 stimulus words presented one at a time on a computer screen. In the presence of each stimulus word, subjects first press the “A” key, then the “B” key, and finally the “C” key, with each response producing a different outcome word. For example, given the stimulus word “LAB,” pressing the “A” key produces “PUN,” pressing the “B” key produces “TRY,” and pressing the “C” key produces “EGG.” Given a different stimulus word (e.g., “RUM”), the same set of three responses produces a different set of outcome words (e.g., A→FAT, B→CAN, C→TIC). In subsequent testing, subjects are presented with all 30 stimulus word–response combinations and, in each case, they have to try and provide the appropriate outcome word (e.g., LAB, A→ ? Correct response  =  PUN). When Williams and Pearlberg had college students perform this task, they found that students' performance on the three-term learning task correlated strongly ( r  =  .50) with their scores on the Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices.

Williams and Pearlberg conducted a follow-up study (unpublished) in which they compared their three-term learning task with a two-term associative learning task designed to mimic their three-term task as closely as possible. In the two-term learning task, ten stimulus words were each paired sequentially with three different words but without intervening responses to keys A, B, and C. During testing, the subject was asked to recall each of three words that had been associated with each stimulus. Despite the fact that both the type and the amount of material to be learned on this two-term task was similar to that on the three-term contingency task, the correlation between learning rate and Raven scores was only about .25, approximately half that obtained with the three-term task. This difference could not be attributed to differences in task difficulty. These findings clearly demonstrate that learning ability is an important component of fluid intelligence, but they also raise an important question: How can simply adding the middle (response) term of the three-term contingency lead to such a substantial increase in the correlation between learning and intelligence test scores?

One way to approach this question is to see how performance on the three-term learning task relates to performance on other types of basic information-processing tasks. Williams and Pearlberg (2006) originally reported that the three-term contingency task was not significantly correlated with working memory and processing speed tasks, but in subsequent research they have found occasional significant correlations between three-term contingency learning and some working memory tasks (but as yet no significant correlation with any speed-of-processing task has been observed). Importantly, the correlations between working memory and Raven scores have always been smaller than the correlations between three-term verbal learning and Raven scores.

Tamez et al. (2008) recently replicated the substantial correlation between Williams and Pearlberg's (2006) three-term contingency learning and Raven scores, and extended this finding to an essentially similar three-term contingency task that used visual-spatial patterns as stimuli. Moreover, as in the research by Williams and Pearlberg, Tamez et al. found that the three-term verbal learning task correlated more strongly with Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices than any of the three working memory tasks used in their study. Of the three, the operation span task, which is becoming a standard for assessing working memory capacity ( Conway et al., 2005 ), correlated most highly with Raven scores ( r  =  .395). However, this correlation was still less than that between the three-term verbal learning task and Raven scores ( r  =  .489). In addition, multiple regression analyses revealed that performance on the three-term learning task accounted for all of the variance in Raven scores explained by operation span as well as additional variance unique to three-term contingency learning.

Thus, learning, or at least learning on tasks like the three-term contingency learning task developed by Williams and Pearlberg (2006) , is among the very best predictors of performance on fluid intelligence tests. From one perspective, this should not be surprising. Ever since Binet and Simon (1905 , 1916) developed the first standardized intelligence test, a major purpose of such tests has been to aid in the identification of children who were likely to have problems learning in regular schools. It follows that if one develops an intelligence test that can predict learning, then given the nature of correlations, learning should also predict performance on that test.

From another perspective, however, the relation of learning ability to intelligence test scores is surprising, at least with respect to fluid intelligence tests. After all, tests of fluid intelligence such as Raven's Progressive Matrices were developed originally with the goal of measuring cognitive ability independent of past learning. Such a goal may be unattainable, however, if individuals taking fluid intelligence tests are actually learning the correct solution strategies as they proceed, as some researchers recently have suggested (e.g., Carlstedt, Gustafsson, & Ullstadius, 2000 ; Verguts & De Boeck, 2002 ). Indeed, our research on three-term learning suggests that learning ability is a major component of fluid intelligence ( Tamez et al., 2008 ; Williams & Pearlberg, 2006 ).

The specific roles played by learning ability in determining individual differences in performance on intelligence tests remain to be determined. Nevertheless, Williams and Pearlberg's (2006) finding that only some types of learning tasks are significantly correlated with intelligence scores raises the possibility that it is the structure of what is to be learned that determines the strength of such correlations. For example, consider the structure of what must be learned on the three-term contingency task of Williams and Pearlberg: There are 10 stimulus words, each of which is associated with three different key-press responses, which in turn are each associated with 10 outcome words to be recalled. There presumably are also associations between stimulus words and outcome words in addition to the associations between stimulus–response combinations and outcome words. When a stimulus word and key press are specified, an individual performing the three-term task must contend with multiple competing associations. Out of all these various associations, only one unique stimulus–response–outcome combination is correct.

Individual differences in the ability to learn which word to recall in the face of such competing associations may well be what underlie differences on intelligence tests. Building on the idea that fluid intelligence tests also involve learning (e.g., Carlstedt et al., 2000 ; Verguts & De Boeck, 2002 ), we suggest that the reason that learning on the three-term task is related to performance on tests of fluid intelligence is because these fluid tests also involve learning in the face of stimuli competing for control, and the reason that learning ability is related to performance on tests of crystallized intelligence is that these crystallized tests assess the results of past learning in the face of such competition. In fact, learning in the presence of competing stimuli may be an important part of what glues the various components of g together and gives rise to the consistency of individuals' behavior across different tests and in quite different situations.

Interestingly, Unsworth and Engle (2007) recently suggested that the ability to efficiently constrain searches of long-term memory is a critical aspect of working memory function, and in their view, this ability may underlie the correlation between working memory and intelligence. Although the terminology is quite different (e.g., attention control vs. stimulus control) and the emphasis is on using knowledge rather than on its acquisition, the view expressed by Unsworth and Engle is similar to our own. At this point in time, the preceding ideas are clearly hypotheses in need of further evaluation. However, they exemplify our belief that in order to shed light on what scores on intelligence tests mean, and why individuals show such consistent performance on the subtests of which these tests are composed, what will be needed is a clear determination of the critical dimensions that govern when tests of learning ability predict scores on intelligence tests, and vice versa.

Final Comments

Astute application of behavioral principles may facilitate the development of expertise in specific learning situations, but it remains to be established whether general behavioral principles can provide insight into the fact that some people consistently perform better than others in situations that would be considered intellectually demanding. In principle, the observed covariance in performance level across very diverse tasks that characterizes g poses the same sort of issues as the covariance in different measures of other intervening variables. For example, a motivational construct like hunger refers to the fact that diverse food-related behaviors covary in strength. Similarly, Skinner's (1969) definition of the operant entails that seemingly different movement patterns are the same response unit to the extent that they are functionally equivalent and thus covary in strength. Like these other integrative concepts, the covariance implicit in the concept of g can be studied productively using functional analysis to determine the natural lines of fracture. Processing speed and working memory capacity, which are currently the predominant integrative constructs for explaining g , also are amenable to such a behavioral analysis. Indeed, new behavioral principles governing the absolute size of individual and age differences on processing speed tasks have already begun to emerge ( Chen et al., 2007 ; Hale & Jansen, 1994 ; Myerson et al., 2003 ).

Recent findings relating intelligence scores to learning rate suggest that a behavior- analytic approach has great promise for understanding individual differences in intelligence. These findings present us with an opportunity to identify the specific features of learning that are most relevant to intelligent behavior. It remains to be seen how much of the general factor in intelligence scores can be explained by differences in learning, but given the importance of g for so much of everyday life (e.g., Gottfredson, 1997 ; Herrnstein & Murray, 1994 ; for a recent review, see Lubinski, 2004 ), behavior analysts surely will be motivated to undertake the relevant research. There is no justification for leaving the study of intelligence to others.

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• Neuroscience

The Neuroscience of Behavior: Five Famous Cases

Five patients who shaped our understanding of behavior and the brain..

Posted January 16, 2020 | Reviewed by Lybi Ma

“Considering everything, it seems we are dealing here with a special illness… There are certainly more psychiatric illnesses than are listed in our textbooks.” —Alois Alzheimer (In: Benjamin, 2018)

Once thought to be the product of demonic possession, immorality, or imbalanced humors, we now know that psychiatric symptoms are often caused by changes in the brain. Read on to learn about the people who helped us understand the brain as the driving force behind our behaviors.

Phineas Gage

In 1848, John Harlow first described the case of a 25-year-old railroad foreman named Phineas Gage. Gage was a "temperate" man: hardworking, polite, and well-liked by all those around him. One day, Gage was struck through the skull by an iron rod launched in an accidental explosion. The rod traveled through the prefrontal cortex of his brain. Remarkably, he survived with no deficits in his motor function or memory . However, his family and friends noticed major changes in his personality . He became impatient, unreliable, vulgar, and was even described as developing the "animal passions of a strong man." This was the first glimpse into the important role of the prefrontal cortex in personality and social behavior (David, 2009; Thiebaut de Schotten, 2015; Benjamin, 2018).

Louis Victor Leborgne

Pierre Broca first published the case of 50-year-old Louis Victor Leborgne in 1861. Despite normal intelligence , Leborgne inexplicably lost the ability to speak. His nickname was Tan, after this became the only word he ever uttered. He was otherwise unaffected and seemed to follow directions and understand others without difficulty. After he died, Broca examined his brain, finding an abnormal area of brain tissue only in the left anterior frontal lobe. This suggested that the left and right sides of the brain were not always symmetric in their functions, as previously thought. Broca later went on to describe several other similar cases, cementing the role of the left anterior frontal lobe (now called Broca’s area) as a crucial region for producing (but not understanding) language (Dronkers, 2007; David, 2009; Thiebaut de Schotten, 2015).

Auguste Deter

Psychiatrist and neuropathologist Aloysius Alzheimer described the case of Auguste Deter, a 56-year-old woman who passed away in 1906 after she developed strange behaviors, hallucinations, and memory loss. When Alzheimer looked at her brain under the microscope, he described amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles that we now know are a hallmark of the disease that bears his name. This significant discovery was the first time that a biological molecule such as a protein was linked to a psychiatric illness (Shorter, 1997; David, 2009; Kalia & Costa e Silva, 2015).

In 1933, Spafford Ackerly described the case of "JP” who, beginning at a very young age, would do crude things like defecate on others' belongings, expose himself, and masturbate in front of other children at school. These behaviors worsened as he aged, leading to his arrest as a teenager . He was examined by Ackerly who found that the boy had a large cyst, likely present from birth, that caused severe damage to his prefrontal cortices. Like the case of Phineas Gage, JP helped us understand the crucial role that the prefrontal cortex plays in judgment, decision-making , social behaviors, and personality (Benjamin, 2018).

HM (Henry Gustav Molaison)

William Scoville first described the case of HM, a 29-year-old man whom he had treated two years earlier with an experimental surgery to remove his medial temporal lobes (including the hippocampus and amygdala on both sides). The hope was that the surgery would control his severe epilepsy, and it did seem to help. But with that improvement came a very unexpected side effect: HM completely lost the ability to form certain kinds of new memories. While he was still able to form new implicit or procedural memories (like tying shoes or playing the piano), he was no longer able to form new semantic or declarative memories (like someone’s name or major life events). This taught us that memories were localized to a specific brain region, not distributed throughout the whole brain as previously thought (David, 2009; Thiebaut de Schotten, 2015; Benjamin, 2018).

Facebook /LinkedIn image: Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock

Benjamin, S., MacGillivray, L., Schildkrout, B., Cohen-Oram, A., Lauterbach, M.D., & Levin, L.L. (2018). Six landmark case reports essential for neuropsychiatric literacy. J Neuropsychiatry Clin Neurosci, 30 , 279-290.

Shorter, E., (1997). A history of psychiatry: From the era of the asylum to the age of Prozac. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Thiebaut de Schotten, M., Dell'Acqua, F., Ratiu, P. Leslie, A., Howells, H., Cabanis, E., Iba-Zizen, M.T., Plaisant, O., Simmons, A, Dronkers, N.F., Corkin, S., & Catani, M. (2015). From Phineas Gage and Monsieur Leborgne to H.M.: Revisiting disconnection syndromes. Cerebral Cortex, 25 , 4812-4827.

David, A.S., Fleminger, S., Kopelman, M.D., Lovestone, S., & Mellers, J. (2009). Lishman's organic psychiatry: A textbook of neuropsychiatry. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.

Kalia, M., & Costa e Silva, J. (2015). Biomarkers of psychiatric diseases: Current status and future prospects. Metabolism, 64, S11-S15.

Dronkers, N.F., Plaisant, O., Iba-Zizen, M.T., & Cabanis, E.A. (2007). Paul Broca's historic cases: High resolution MR Imaging of the brains of Leborgne and Lelong. Brain , 130, 1432–1441.

Scoville, W.B., & Milner, B. (1957). Loss of recent memory after bilateral hippocampal lesions. J. Neurol. Neurosurg. Psychiat., 20, 11-21.

Melissa Shepard, MD , is an assistant professor of psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

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