Lack of Sleep and Lack of Ethics Linked

Poor baby needs a nap.

A new study out of Virginia Tech tells us that if you don't get enough sleep, not only will your work suffer, but your ethics could also take a significant hit.

Christopher Barnes of the Pamplin College of Business, who conducted the study, says, "Sleep deprivation may ... contribute to unethical conduct in the workplace, which is costly to organizations.”

Barnes is one of three academics who've conducted four studies in different settings and situations to take a look at low levels of sleep when making decisions that involve ethics. He says, “We consistently found that people were more likely to behave unethically when they were short on sleep.” He believes that "managers and organizations may play a larger role than previously thought in promoting unethical behavior — through excessive work demands, extended work hours, and shifts that result in night work, each of which, other studies show, has diminished employee sleep," according to a Tech press release.

He says, “We are not arguing that managers can or should completely control the sleep and unethical behavior of their subordinates, but that managers should recognize that many of their actions may have second-order effects on sleep and thus unethical behavior. Managers who push their employees to work long hours, work late into the night, or work sporadic and unpredictable schedules may be creating situations that foster unethical behavior.”

The study is “Lack of sleep and unethical conduct,” co-authored with John Schaubroeck and Megan Huth of Michigan State University and Sonia Ghumman of the University of Hawaii and published in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.

What I take from this, among other things, is that Congress is putting in a lot of long hours.


(Photo: mysticmadness.com)