Abstract: Business ethics has given rise to much public attention in recent years. Previous research into behavioral ethics has demonstrated that individuals’ ethical decisions will be a combined result of dispositional factors, social influences and situational interactions. From the perspective of social cognition, construal level theory claims that people are likely to make different behavioral choices if they represent the ethical scenarios at different construal levels. Specifically, when people represent the scenarios at high construal level, they probably take the primary, global and superordinate features into consideration. In contrast, when they represent the scenarios at low construal level, they are more likely to consider the secondary, local and subordinate features. The far temporal distance of scenarios is connected to high construal levels. , Ethical judgment, which is defined as awareness of vice and virtue in a scenario, is linked to a representation of high construal level. Given the theoretical logic above, we hypothesized that a far temporal distance of a moral complex will enhance the ethical judgment of a decision-maker. In the current work, two experiments were conducted to test our hypothesis. In Study 1, we embedded the temporal distance in three ethical judgment scenarios by the temporal conditions of “two days ago” versus “two years ago”, with 139 college students being involved in the experiment. The results of repeated-measure ANOVA have shown that the effects of temporal distance were significant; F(1, 127)=5.69, p=0.02, η2=0.04. The subjects perceived the unethical behaviors in a far temporal distance as more unacceptable. In Study 2, apart from the manipulation of temporal distance, we introduced the dispositional variable, namely, consideration of future consequences. 92 MBA students participated in the experiment, filling in the CFC scale before the judgments of four ethical scenarios were made. The repeated measure ANOVA results have shown that the effect of the temporal distance was significant, F(1, 88)= 8.65, p=0.00, η2= 0.09; the effects of the CFC feature was also significant, F(1, 88)=7.33, p=0.01, η2= 0.08; and further the interaction term has shown a significant influence, F(1, 88)=4.44, p=0.038, η2= 0.048. Our hypothesis was confirmed by the results of these two experiments. Our empirical evidences have shown that temporal distance would exert an influence on the decision makers by increasing their moral awareness. A far temporal distance would help individuals to represent an ethical complexity at a high construal level and then make more rigorous decisions. The dispositional feature of far-sight would also serve as a moderator in relation to the prediction. Our research contributed to ethical decision-making literature from the perspective of construal level theory. We firstly introduced dispositional variables besides social cognitive factors in moral decision representations, which suggested that dispositional differences could serve as another factor influencing ethical complex cognition. We also offer suggestion that other dimensions of psychological distance might serve as preconditions of construal levels, which could be explored and discovered in future research. Two experiments were conducted to test our hypothesis. In Study 1, we embedded the temporal distance in 3 ethical judgment scenarios by the temporal condition of “two days ago” versus “two years ago”. 139 college students joined the experiment. The results of repeated-measure ANOVA showed that the effects of temporal distance were significant; F(1, 127)=5.69, p=0.02, η2=0.04. The subjects considered the unethical behaviors in a far temporal distance as more unacceptable. In Study 2, we introduced the dispositional variable of consideration of future consequences besides the manipulation of temporal distance. 92 MBA students participated in the experiment. The subjects filled in the CFC scale before the judgments of 4 ethical scenarios were made. The repeated measure ANOVA results showed that the effect of the temporal distance was significant, F(1, 88)= 8.65, p=0.00, η2= 0.09; the effects of the CFC feature was also significant, F(1, 88)=7.33, p=0.01, η2= 0.08; and the interaction term also showed a significant influence, F(1, 88)=4.44, p=0.038, η2= 0.048. The results of the two experiments confirmed our hypothesis. Our results showed that temporal distance would enhance the decision makers by increasing their moral awareness. A far temporal distance would help people to represent an ethical complexity from a high level construal, and then make more rigorous decisions. The dispositional feature of far-sight would also serve as a moderator in relation to the prediction. Our research contributed to ethical decision-making literature from the perspective of construal level theory. We firstly introduced dispositional variables besides social cognitive factors in moral decision representations. It suggested that dispositional differences could serve as another factor influencing ethical complex cognition. We also suggested that other dimensions of psychological distance might serve as preconditions of construal levels which could be discovered in future research. Two experiments were conducted to test our hypothesis. In Study 1, we embedded the temporal distance in 3 ethical judgment scenarios by the temporal condition of “two days ago” versus “two years ago”. 139 college students joined the experiment. The results of repeated-measure ANOVA showed that the effects of temporal distance were significant; F(1, 127)=5.690, p=0.019, η2=0.043. The subjects considered the unethical behaviors in a far temporal distance as more unacceptable. In Study 2, we introduced the dispositional variable of consideration of future consequences besides the manipulation of temporal distance. 92 MBA students participated in the experiment. The subjects filled in the CFC scale before the judgments of 4 ethical scenarios were made. The repeated measure ANOVA results showed that the effect of the temporal distance was significant, F(1, 88)= 8.650, p=0.004, η2= 0.089; the effects of the CFC feature was also significant, F(1, 88)=7.329, p=0.008, η2= 0.077; and the interaction term also showed a significant influence, F(1, 88)=4.444, p=0.038, η2= 0.048. The results of the two experiments confirmed our hypothesis. Our results showed that temporal distance would enhance the decision makers by increasing their moral awareness. A far temporal distance would help people to represent an ethical complexity from a high level construal], and then make more rigorous decisions. The dispositional feature of far-sight would also serve as a moderator in relation to the prediction. Our research contributed to ethical decision-making literature from the perspective of construal level theory. We firstly introduced dispositional variables besides social cognitive factors in moral decision representations. It suggested that dispositional differences could serve as another factor influencing ethical complex cognition. We also suggested that other dimensions of psychological distance might serve as preconditions of construal levels which could be discovered in future research.

Key words: temporal distance, consideration for future consequence, ethical judgment

摘要： 本文从识解水平理论角度研究问题表征对伦理判断的影响。本文推断，事件的时间距离使得人们更容易形成高识解表征，能更好地辨别决策困境中的伦理原则；未来结果考虑特征高的管理者更关注决策的长期后果，也倾向于维护伦理原则。研究用两个实验递进验证了假设。139位大学生被试参加了实验一，结果支持了假设；实验二采用92位MBA学生的样本重复检验结论，并进一步验证了未来结果考虑如何调节影响时间距离与伦理判断之间的关系。

关键词: 时间距离, 未来结果考虑, 伦理判断