In today’s world of globalization and expanding corporations, it is crucial that leaders act ethically to avoid the scandals, fraud, and financial collapses whose vibrations resonate internationally. Our research is guided by a desire to discover more successful strategies to teach ethics to business professionals and students. Unethical behavior spans an extensive range, all of which is financially costly for a company. Drawing from Ironic Thought Processing Theory, we hypothesize people will commit counterintentional errors when under a mental load, such as stress, fear, and distraction. In application to ethics, we hypothesize that participants directed not to think about ethics will consequently engage in less unethical behavior. Our hypothesis was tested with a sample of undergraduate business students, who were randomly assigned to one of three conditions. In the first two conditions, participants read passages about ethical principles, but one was instructed to reflect upon the ethics they read, whereas the other group was instructed not to consider ethical principles they read. Our third condition served as a control group, who read a similar length, yet irrelevant news article. Participants then attempted to complete 10 unsolvable math problems, requiring them to add impossible sets of numbers to 15, and report if they could successfully solve problems for extra cash payment. Results show that students who read about ethics, but are instructed not to think about it, engage in less unethical behavior when compared to the other conditions. Our study has broad implications. First, it is an application of the Ironic Thought Processing Theory in a new domain, widening its theoretical application. Second, our research will provide preliminary evidence to aid administrators to better structure business ethics curriculum.