Integrity

INTEGRITY

Christopher Ebbe, Ph.D.      11-13

ABSTRACT:  Integrity is defined and discussed.  The barriers to living with integrity are enumerated, and illustrations are given for the consequences of failures of integrity, both for the individual and for others in complex, interdependent societies.  Reasons for these failures are explored, along with methods of improvement.

KEY WORDS:  integrity, responsibility, conscience, self-interest

It is very satisfying and gratifying to live in a way that is true to one’s own values, ideals, and beliefs—to live with integrity.  This both expresses and confirms one’s values, ideals, and beliefs and allows one to more fully and deeply understand and appreciate those values, ideals, and beliefs through repeatedly observing them and their results in one’s own life.  One of the consequences of not living with integrity is losing respect for oneself, which then lowers one’s self-esteem.

Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary defines “integrity” as “an unimpaired condition: soundness; firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values: incorruptibility; the quality or state of being complete or undivided: completeness.”  We respect people who live with integrity, who believe in themselves and are true to themselves and what they believe in (even if they don’t agree with our particular values).  

“Completeness” implies being a complete person, with all of our strengths and weaknesses, all of our wonderful and not so wonderful traits.  “Completeness” would call for knowing oneself fully and completely and accepting it all, without having to divide oneself into “good” and “bad” parts.  Any forced suppression of self (i.e., feeling forced not to be who we really are, as opposed to feeling that we are choosing freely from among the many satisfying ways that each of us can be) results in unhealthy incompleteness and resentment on our part.

“Firm adherence to a set of ... values” is necessary for integrity, and in this case you embody this set of values.  You have a set of values about existence that indicates the relative importance of various activities, the purpose of life, and the rules that you believe should govern conduct between people.  You are the living example of your values and the only one who can clearly and completely illustrate them and represent them in the world.

Having integrity means to stick to what you believe incorruptibly.  If you have integrity, you do not change your stand or your beliefs just because someone else wants you to, or because it would be to your immediate advantage to do so.  If you do not believe in stealing, and you are in a situation in which you could easily take someone’s valuable property without being detected, you do not all of a sudden change your values and take the property, rationalizing that while most of the time you are against stealing, this opportunity is too good to pass up.  

Having integrity requires that we do not distort the truth for our own advantage.  We view ourselves and others objectively, and we are not hypocritical—for example, criticizing others for drinking too much but attacking anyone who accurately points out that we drink too much ourselves.

A person with integrity can tolerate whatever comes with relative ease, including the events in her life and her own emotional reactions.  She can feel battered by external events or by her own strong emotions (such as shame, guilt, or disappointment) but through these experiences is able to stay relatively centered and on an even keel and does not vary significantly in how she views reality, treats others, or carries out responsibilities.  She can be counted on by others in good times and bad times to be the same trustworthy, responsible, and caring person.  The feelings, perceptions, and choices of persons without integrity tend to flow purely from self-interest, so their moods, viewpoints, and behavior will have relatively less consistency or continuity.

If part of integrity is not losing sight of the truth, not changing one’s values based on immediate opportunities, and not being pushed too far off balance by various emotions, then integrity would imply being relatively constant in mood (since emotions can be regulated and reasons for them understood), relatively constant in viewpoint (from seeing the truth and the totality of the situation and from not getting pushed off center by emotion, circumstance, or others’ opinions), and relatively constant in behavior (since having a relatively constant view of reality and managing emotions adequately will tend to produce similar behavior choices over and over in similar circumstances).  A person with integrity acts autonomously and consistently in accordance with her principles, sometimes regardless of negative consequences.  She takes into account the input of others but makes her own decisions about the issues and is not swayed by over-emotionality, loudness, repetition, or manipulations.  She readily perceives the self-serving and unsupported nature of many assertions by human beings about reality, as well as the ad hoc and circumstantial nature of societal customs and beliefs.

If we act with integrity, our values, ideals, and beliefs will be visible to others through our actions, so that they know where we stand and know what to expect from us.  It would not be “integritous” to hold secret our values, ideals, and beliefs and to demonstrate other values, ideals, and beliefs in our public behavior.

We generally associate integrity with positive cultural values, such as dependability, honesty, and reliability, but each individual’s set of values, ideals, and beliefs is somewhat different, and it would seem theoretically possible to uphold and adhere to, with integrity, a set of values, ideals, and beliefs that are different from the cultural norm.  However, if in doing so we were to harm others, then somewhere inside us we would empathically experience that harm, which itself would harm ourselves.

Having integrity means that if you “believe in” being trustworthy, carrying out duties dependably, and doing a job properly, then you are committed to reliably carrying out the assigned tasks and the responsibilities that you have accepted.  If you are a crossing guard, then you will be at your post every day at the right time, and you will pay attention to all pedestrians and cars during your entire shift.  If you are a train engineer, then you will pay attention to the track ahead, to the signals, and to your train’s warning lights and gauges without distraction, even when the train is to some degree on automatic pilot.  If you are the pilot of a plane, you will attend to your plane’s position and condition every minute, in case the plane’s computers miss something or suddenly fail.

Having integrity sometimes requires standing on your own and being yourself, even when some others do not agree with you.  This is especially true when a group of which one is a part is violating one’s own values, ideals, or beliefs.  We usually admire those who can stand against harmful behavior by a group, but it is another matter to do so oneself.  A young man who believes in the dignity of all people but whose friends openly demean African-Americans faces an immediate integrity crisis.  A young woman who gives in to being who her mother wants her to be, to the exclusion of her true self, will face a chronic integrity crisis. For both of these individuals to have integrity and respect themselves, they must stand up for their beliefs.

Not having integrity, then, has to do largely with being false— denying the truth, pretending to be other than who we are, being hypocritical, and not living according to our stated values.  Our challenge is to face who we are and work toward accepting who we are, while at the same time expressing our true selves in the world and having the courage to face whatever rejection or hurt that we fear others will give us if they do not like who we are.

If we are willing to listen to ourselves, most people know when they are violating their own integrity by acting falsely or out of accord with their values, ideals, and beliefs.  This is not conscience but rather an awareness that one’s self-concept and self-image are being violated, so that one is not portraying in behavior what one has claimed about oneself.  This is usually troubling and can be taken as a signal to oneself to more clearly choose how to act—whether to get back into accord with one’s values, ideals, and beliefs or to violate them for some specific reason or with some identified excuse. 

Integrity is often abandoned through hypocrisy or inconsistency. It would be a loss of integrity to say that you believed in loving and comforting yourself while at the same time criticizing and wounding yourself.  It would be a loss of integrity to use your cell phone for calls and texts while driving a train, when you have sworn to make the passengers’ safety your number one concern.

Pros and Cons of Having Integrity and Acting with Integrity

Having integrity gives us the satisfaction of living by our values, ideals, and beliefs, so that we take pleasure in noticing when we express those values, ideals, and beliefs in how we approach life and how we treat others.   Acting with integrity also relieves us from the possibility of feeling duplicitous (hiding, deceiving, or keeping secrets from others) and as if we are betraying our values, ideals, and beliefs by not acting in accord with them.

Others appreciate our integrity, even when they don’t agree with our particular values, ideals, and beliefs, and they particularly value our dependability (assuming that dependability is one of our values).  Others also know that “what they see is what they get” with us, that we are not hiding secret values, ideals, and beliefs that they will be surprised or unhappy to see later on.  They value the assessments and judgments of a person with integrity, since they can have relative confidence that those assessments and judgments will be made without bias.

The major disadvantage of having and acting with integrity is that we are revealed to the world and risk negative reactions from others, especially if our expressed values, ideals, and beliefs are different from those of others.  A person with integrity values acting with integrity enough to tolerate these occasional negative reactions, hoping that he can help others to understand his viewpoint and possibly to benefit from its insights.

The other major cost of having and acting with integrity is that in order to act with integrity, we may sometimes have to do things that we wish we did not have to do, such as doing one’s homework even though one is tired or carrying out a promise even though one would prefer to be doing something else at that moment.

If we have integrity, then we notice when we are tempted to act in contradiction to our values, ideals, and beliefs, and this self-awareness alerts us to the immediate choice we must make between acting with integrity and serving our own immediate interests.  Hopefully our commitment to integrity will be sufficient in most circumstances to allow us to maintain that integrity!

Problems From Failures of Integrity

Not acting with integrity can stem from hypocrisy (claiming to be reliable and to have integrity even though one does not), inconsistency (usually from putting one’s immediate needs above carrying out one’s duties), or fear of others’ reactions, as noted above, but it can also be the result of being unorganized and therefore unable to act consistently.

Consequences for others of one’s lack of integrity can range from minor (taking care of things but often not on time) to catastrophic in cases where crashes of buses, trains, or planes, with many injuries or deaths, occur because of neglect and lack of attention.  Other recent and significant problems resulting from lack of integrity include college classroom cheating, cheating in sports, the fairly widespread practice of  teachers changing students’ test results in order that the class meet state or federal standards for achievement, and, of course, corruption in government.  Crashes of buses, trains, or planes usually are caused by operators losing focus and attention to the road, track, or surroundings, often because there seems to be “nothing happening” and because of boredom in these fairly routinized occupations.  It takes great concentration and determination to maintain attention when bored, and those who carry out these tasks with integrity are certainly to be congratulated!

Classroom cheating has grown exponentially with the availability on the internet of pre-written essays and papers on many, many subjects and with the development of tiny electronic devices (i.e., cell phones, cameras) that can copy for later sale or transmit test questions or answers to others in the same room or outside.  The failure here is the loss of belief that education is meaningful (so why not cheat, when the goal is not to learn but simply to pass) and the refusal to take responsibility oneself for one’s abilities and performance (to pass or fail on one’s own merits), instead justifying cheating by the fact that in many of today’s relatively meaningless and routine jobs, training has little to do with performance and by the belief that if one doesn’t cheat, one will lose out, since “everyone else is doing it.”

Teacher cheating has ballooned recently as society puts more and more pressure (partly unfairly) on teachers to “make” children learn, including government standards that threaten teacher job security of students fail to learn enough.  Teacher cheating is the product of fear of job loss, fear of embarrassment, and perceiving (justifiably or not) that the standards are not reasonable and therefore need not be honored if it means losing one’s job.

Cheating in sports is societally sanctioned, and we make no efforts to control it except by penalties during the game for being caught breaking the rules.  There is no moral pressure on athletes not to cheat (except for using performance-enhancing substances), and many sports fans want their athletes to cheat if that is what it takes to win (and thereby to verify the manhood of both the athlete and the fan).  Due to the pressure to win and the hope that players have of “advancing to the next level,” the attitude among athletes is that cheating is morally OK, that every advantage must be taken in order to win and to look good.  When actually facing opponents on the field of play who are cheating, it takes a great deal of integrity not to do so oneself.

Government corruption (bribery, embezzlement, vote selling, etc.) results from incumbents viewing elected positions or bureaucratic employment as opportunities for personal enrichment rather than opportunities to serve one’s fellow citizens.  Corruption will continue until enough people insist on integrity in those they vote for, instead of looking the other way or tolerating corruption as long as those corrupt actions benefit them personally

It has come to light recently that a large number of scientific research reports prove to be false or unsupported when other experimenters attempt to replicate them.  This is certainly troublesome since we have come to depend on scientific advances in many areas and since basing behavior on actually groundless “findings” can have negative consequences for the public.  There are few attempts to replicate findings anyway, because researchers get far more fame and recognition for the initial finding itself than for the more mundane replication.  Acting with integrity would require that researchers report their findings with the caveat that the findings should not be trusted or used in real life until confirmed through replication.  For the scientific field itself to have integrity would require that the system of rewards for researchers be redesigned so that replication would be expected and rewarded.  For the media who spread the word about these initial findings, to have integrity would require that they append a verbal notice to every such report of the unreliability (unreplicated nature) of the findings.

All of these failures of integrity (and morality) depend fundamentally on the hope that one will not be caught (and embarrassed or punished, depending on the actions), but more sadly also on the lack of concern that people have for their fellow citizens.  Every improper action that we do affects others.

How To Have Greater Integrity

As noted above, not acting with integrity can stem from putting one’s immediate needs above living with integrity (with or without a hypocritical excuse, claiming to be reliable and to have integrity even though one does not or has it only episodically), from fear of others’ reactions, or from simply being too unorganized to act consistently in accord with one’s values, ideals, and beliefs.  Increasing one’s integrity can be approached in several ways, if one cares to do so.  (Not everyone will want to act with greater integrity, but it is unlikely that such a person would have read this far in the essay!  If one is unconvinced about the need for acting with greater integrity, then consider again the benefits and costs of having and acting with integrity identified above, and make a choice about whether integrity is important enough to tolerate the costs.)

To change or grow, it helps to have a vision of what change would look like.  Pick someone whom you admire for his or her integrity (or several people), and get a clear image of what you would like to become with respect to integrity.

Be clear about what your values, ideals, and beliefs are.  (Values are the characteristics of yourself and others that you admire and feel good about—e.g., honesty, loyalty, helpfulness.  Values, in this context, are not things that you value, like family or soccer, although loyalty to family could be a value and playing your best soccer every minute could be a value.  Ideals are your picture of how people can live the best lives.  Many ideals will be restatements of your values but perhaps with more emphasis or with a higher standard.  “Honesty” might be a value; “being honest all the time” could be an ideal.)  (This exercise will also give you a chance to notice if any of your ideals are so idealistic as to be unrealistic and therefore not helpful in practice or with regard to realistic growth on your part.) 

Give this some thought, and write down your values, ideals, and beliefs, even if it is just some notes rather than a full description.  If you can’t identify them, think about what makes you feel warm, secure, and good when you watch other people’s behavior and when you experience other people’s behavior toward you.

Then, consider whether you are living in accord with your values, ideals, and beliefs.  Think about the details of your daily life and how you express (or don’t express) your values, ideals, and beliefs in practice.  You can then identify ways in which you would like to better represent your values, ideals, and beliefs in your behavior.  Write these down, too, specifically, such as “since treating those I love with concern and compassion is an ideal for me, I will work on being in a better frame of mind when I get up in the morning, so I can greet the rest of the family in a positive way” or “since one of my values is personal responsibility, I will stop making excuses for when I mess up.”

If  there are specific barriers for you to acting with greater integrity, such as lack of commitment, lack of organization, and fear, consider some changes.  If you are not fully committed to having and acting with integrity, so that you do act with integrity sometimes but not all the time, it means that you do not perceive the positive benefits of integrity to be worth giving up the option to do what you want sometimes instead of acting with integrity.  Since you value this option more than your integrity, you will continue to abandon integrity when you want to, even if you pretend to others that you have integrity.  They will eventually perceive your duplicity.  Perhaps at some point in the future, with more experience, you will decide that integrity is valuable enough to give up the option to act without integrity for your immediate gain.

General disorganization is due either to lack of mental capacity for greater organization or secret desire to have the option to get what one wants using the excuse of disorganization.  If one lacks the mental capacity for greater organization, then one must be satisfied with what one has, or develop some compensating mechanisms that will support greater organization, such as keeping a notebook with a calendar with one at all times and doing one’s best to write down dates and obligations every time they become known, as well as to refer to those notes every time a new commitment is asked of one.  These notes might usefully include a description of behaviors that one wants to do again in the future in the same circumstance (such as refrain from arguing further when discussions become shouting matches), since writing these down may help one to remember them, and reviewing one’s notebook will provide reinforcement of these commitments to oneself.

If your disorganization is due to a desire to use it as an excuse for selfish actions, then change will occur only when you decide that you will get more out of life by giving that up and acting with greater integrity.  Once again, this will come down to doing what you believe will be best for your life in an overall sense.

The most common cause of acting without integrity is fearing the reactions of certain others if one acts in ways that are consistent with what one really believes is right or best.  No one likes to be rejected or criticized, and sometimes acting with integrity leads to rejection and criticism just for being different and because of the challenge that one’s difference poses to others’ morality or integrity.  If one refuses to join in with bullying, for example, when one’s acquaintances are bullying someone, one’s withdrawal from the bullying is a tacit if not overt indication of disapproval, and this may well be responded to with criticism or even with some violence toward oneself.  It is easier in such a situation to appear to go along with others’ behavior and avoid their rejection or criticism, and it is harder to act according to one’s position that bullying is harmful and therefore not acceptable.  An even more difficult situation would be a forced religious conversion, when the penalty for refusing is death!

In most such situations, however, the costs are not life-threatening but one does risk loss of friendship or support or being left out of a group.  The bottom line is deciding which is worse—one’s own internal shame or guilt for not living according to what one believes is right and proper, or the negative reactions of others.  If the consequences are life-threatening, then perhaps we may be excused for going along with things and not expressing what we believe, but in most cases, it is feasible to act with integrity and simply tolerate the rejection or criticism.  If we can support ourselves with our good self-esteem, then the fact that others cannot accept certain aspects of us becomes a nuisance to be dealt with, rather than a crisis of identity and

hurt feelings. Standing up for what you believe in may result in having different friends, hopefully friends who value your integrity.  Occasionally acting in accord with one’s values and beliefs causes some change in others’ behavior over time, and feeling that one has stood up for what one values and believes in is a very gratifying feeling.  We cannot realistically act with integrity consistently without bringing about some negative reactions, but you may prefer to take those risks and to accept that “you can’t please everybody all of the time.”

Think about some of the situations in which you would like to be true to yourself and to what you believe.  Consider the likely consequences and how you would feel in each circumstance.  If you can tolerate the negative consequences, and it is clear to you that you would feel much better about yourself if you did act with integrity, then you are in a position to have greater integrity and to take some risks in acting with integrity and expressing more of your true self in public.

If you can’t quite bring yourself to act with integrity in some specific circumstance, it may help to consult with someone whom you view as having integrity.  Talking things over with someone who understands is usually helpful and may give you the perspective to take a risk.  People who act courageously usually have some fear, so don’t let the presence of fear automatically stop you!

Since people in general admire and have greater trust in people with integrity, if you act with integrity, you will be contributing to the lives of others and making it possible for the various groups that you are a part of to function better.

Being yourself with integrity is the crowning glory of one’s efforts to be oneself and to have good self-esteem.  Having personal integrity is expressing your true self in the world and being consistent with your beliefs and with who you really are. Being yourself fully and freely and feeling good about it will bring great joy to your life.

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