Accountability for consequential decisions: Justifying ethical judgments to audiences

College students believed that they were judges in a real cheating case (in actuality, it was fictitious) under adjudication Iri a student honor court . Participants recommended harsher punishment after being led to believe th at they would explain their decisions in a face-to-face meeting with (a) an official from the honor court, as compared to a meeting with the student o r no anticipated meeting (Experiment 1), or (b) the professor who brought t he charge of cheating, as compared to a meeting with the student (Experimen t 2). These effects occurred even when participants wrote their decisions a fter learning that the anticipated meeting was canceled. The salient audien ce thus seemed to induce shifts in perspective or evaluative orientation du ring decision making, and not simply reporting shifts designed to please th e audience.