What is the study of how ethical decisions are influenced by situational factors and cognitive biases?

The study of how ethical decisions are influenced by situational factors and cognitive biases is known as behavioral ethics. This field examines how various psychological factors, such as emotions, social influences, and cognitive limitations, affect the ethical judgments individuals make in practice. By understanding behavioral ethics, one can gain insight into why people sometimes act against their own ethical beliefs due to specific circumstances or biases that cloud their judgment.

Behavioral ethics focuses on the real-world application and observation of ethical behavior, highlighting the discrepancies between what people believe is right and how they actually behave in given situations. It allows for a more nuanced understanding of ethics by recognizing that individual decisions are not made in a vacuum but are often shaped by external influences and intrinsic biases, such as conformity to group norms or overconfidence in one's moral standing.

The other terms, while related to ethics, do not specifically address the influence of situational factors and cognitive biases in decision-making. Applied ethics pertains to the use of ethical principles to solve particular ethical dilemmas, descriptive ethics involves studying people's beliefs about what is right and wrong, and normative ethics is concerned with establishing guidelines for what constitutes ethical behavior. Therefore, behavioral ethics is the most relevant field in this context.