The phenomenon of a ‘holier-than-thou’ perception bias has been found in previous studies. A holier-than-thou bias is a form of social desirability bias, whereby an individual tends to consider themselves more ethical compared to their peers when confronted with an ethical dilemma. Social desirability bias occurs when individuals present a stronger tendency to behave in correspondence with social norms and also a lesser tendency to behave with a perceived socially inappropriate attitude. In previous studies, researchers suggest that a holier-than-thou perception bias can have many negative impacts because it can cause individuals to have no motivation to improve their ethical behavior. In other words, people can easily rationalize their own unethical behavior by perceiving others to be far more unethical.
Research on a holier-than-thou perception bias in Indonesia is interesting, considering that the psychological literature suggests that this type of perception bias may not be universal. Markus and Kitayama state that individuals from collectivist cultures (or east cultures) tend not to emphasize the uniqueness of their positive nature. In contrast, some have proven that East Asians enhance themselves and argue that self enhancement is likely to be a universal phenomenon. On the other hand, Hofstede considers Indonesia to be a nation with a collectivist culture compared to India, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, and the Arab countries. Hofstede dan Hofstede mention Indonesia as a collectivist country. The results show that Indonesia has an Individualism Index (IDV) of 14 (scale 1–100), which signifies that Indonesia is one of countries with the smallest indexes in the world. The index shows that Indonesian society is more of a collectivist than an individualist society. These inconsistent findings raise the opportunity to re-research the possible emergence of a holier-than-thou perception bias in collectivist cultures.
To date, not many research examining the effect of gender and work experience on the existence of this type of perception bias, especially in the context of accounting in Indonesia. Gender receives the most attention and is a widely observed variable in business ethics literature. Many studies have reported that women tend to be more sensitive to ethical issues than men. Although the results indicate that women declared a more ethical response than men, relation between ethical decision-making and gender may not be as simple as perceived. The researcher opines that the desirability response bias may disrupt the relation between gender and ethical decision-making. This is what underlies this study to examine the effect of gender on desirability response bias, particularly the holier than thou perception bias.
A study from Narsa et al ., (2020) has tested the existence of a holier-than-thou perception bias in accounting students and accounting graduates who have had work experience in Indonesia. This study develops previous research by examining the effect of gender and work experience on the holier than thou perception bias . Although it was not found that the holier-than-thou bias was different between students and business workers, this study has succeeded in proving that the holier-than-thou bias is greater in women than in men.
Several previous studies have found that women are more prone to social desire bias than men. There is also an opinion that women who are more religious report higher values of social desirability than women who are less religious. Furthermore, women who were more religious reported higher social desire scores than men, regardless of their religious inclination. Furthermore, women are more likely to be influenced by societal norms to create a good impression. This in turn, leads to a greater tendency for women to respond in ways that are socially desirable.
The findings contribute to the accounting literature by providing empirical evidence regarding the existence of a holier than thou perceptual bias in countries with collectivist cultures. In other words, the research provides support for acculturation theory. In practical contribution, this research can provide input to policy makers to improve ethical culture in accounting students and business practitioners.
Authors: Niluh Putu Dian Rosalina Handayani Narsa*, Kadek Trisna Dwiyanti, I Made Narsa.
Details of this research can be viewed on: https://www.ijicc.net/images/Vol11Iss11/111146_Narsa_2020_E_R.pdf
