When Does Feeling Moral Actually Make You a Better Person? Conceptual Abstraction Moderates Whether Past Moral Deeds Motivate Consistency or Compensatory Behavior

Conway, Paul; Peetz, Johanna

doi:10.1177/0146167212442394

Cited by 225 publications

(235 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…To understand when moral compensation or, conversely, consistency will occur, it is important to realize that these effects are at least partly driven by reputational concerns, and not only by de-contextualized moral considerations. Obviously, this finding is very different from earlier research that tried to integrate moral consistency and compensation by using construal level theory (Conway & Peetz, 2012). Construal level theory explains how the psychological distance of events can influence abstract and concrete thinking (Trope & Liberman, 2010).…”

Section: Theoretical and Practical Implicationscontrasting

confidence: 69%

“…Conway and Peetz (2012) showed that recalling a temporally distant action (e.g., behavior performed over 1 year ago) led to moral consistency, whereas recalling a recent action (e.g., behavior performed within the past week) led to moral compensation effects on prosocial intentions. They argued that this effect occurs because distant actions are conceptualized abstractly, in general terms as a schematic representation, whereas recent actions are conceptualized concretely, in specific terms as they occurred.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thinking about (im)moral actions in concrete terms might remind people about the moral obligations that they already fulfilled, which causes people to feel licensed to act less moral (i.e., when thinking about moral behavior) or induces people to compensate through more moral behavior (i.e., when thinking about immoral behavior). Yet, when testing this proposition explicitly with prosocial behavior as the outcome variable, Conway and Peetz (2012) found evidence for moral compensation, but not for moral consistency.Moral Self-Regulation, Consistency, and Compensation 5 …”

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confidence: 97%

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Feel Good, Do-Good!? On Consistency and Compensation in Moral Self-Regulation

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Studies in the behavioral ethics and moral psychology traditions have begun to reveal the important roles of self-related processes that underlie moral behavior. Unfortunately, this research has resulted in two distinct and opposing streams of findings that are usually referred to as moral consistency and moral compensation. Moral consistency research shows that a salient self-concept as a moral person promotes moral behavior. Conversely, moral compensation research reveals that a salient self-concept as an immoral person promotes moral behavior. The present study's aim was to integrate these two literatures. We argued that compensation forms a reactive, "damage control" response in social situations, whereas consistency derives from a more proactive approach to reputation building and maintenance.Two experiments supported this prediction in showing that cognitive depletion (i.e., resulting in a reactive approach) results in moral compensation whereas consistency results when cognitive resources are available (i.e., resulting in a proactive approach). Experiment 2 revealed that these processes originate from reputational (rather than moral) considerations by showing that they emerge only under conditions of accountability. It can thus be concluded that reputational concerns are important for both moral compensation and moral consistency processes, and that which of these two prevails depends on the perspective that people take: a reactive or a proactive approach.Keywords: Accountability; Moral compensation; Moral consistency; Moral licensing; Moral self-regulation; Prosocial Behavior Moral Self-Regulation, Consistency, and Compensation 3 Feel Good, Do-Good!? On Consistency and Compensation in Moral Self-Regulation Every day we encounter numerous work situations in which we have to decide between right and wrong. In the morning, when choosing a new supplier, a warehouse manager may decide to choose for the more expensive one that is guaranteed sweatshop free or she may go for the cheapest offer. In the afternoon, she may decide (somewhat more trivially) to put in some overtime to finish an important deadline or to enjoy a drink on a sunny terrace. Recently, researchers who are interested in behavioral ethics and moral psychology have started to study these moment-to-moment balancing acts between prosocial and self-interested behavior 1 . This research has revealed important roles for the self and selfregulation processes in shaping our moral behaviors (Aquino, Freeman, Reed, Lim, & Felps, 2009;Blasi, 1983;Sachdeva, Iliev, & Medin, 2009;Zhong, Liljenquist, & Cain, 2009).Regretfully, this research has not yet resulted in an integrated model that informs us how self-related processes influence moral behavior. In fact, two distinct literatures seem to have developed independently. While both literatures rely on similar manipulations and measures of morality, they offer surprisingly opposite findings. On the one hand, a series of studies show that people with a salient self-concept as being a moral person disp...

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Section: Theoretical and Practical Implicationscontrasting

confidence: 69%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 97%

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Feel Good, Do-Good!? On Consistency and Compensation in Moral Self-Regulation

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“…Conway and Peetz (2012) conducted a study that was similar to Sachdeva et al's Study 1. However, this was not a direct replication because they adapted the procedure and added extra manipulations.…”

mentioning

confidence: 92%

Three Attempts to Replicate the Moral Licensing Effect

et al. 2014

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General rights It is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Disclaimer/Complaints regulationsIf you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: http://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible. Abstract. The present work includes three attempts to replicate the moral licensing effect by Sachdeva, Iliev, and Medin (2009). The original authors found that writing about positive traits led to lower donations to charity and decreased cooperative behavior. The first two replication attempts (student samples, 95% power based on the initial findings, N Study1 = 105, N Study2 = 150), did not confirm the original results. The third replication attempt (MTurk sample, 95% power based on a meta-analysis on self-licensing, N = 940) also did not confirm the moral licensing effect. We conclude that (1) there is as of yet no strong support for the moral self-regulation framework proposed in Sachdeva et al. (2009) (2) the manipulation used is unlikely to induce moral licensing, and (3) studies on moral licensing should use a neutral control condition.Keywords: moral licensing, moral cleansing, self-regulation, replicationPeople like to present themselves as good people, both to themselves and to others, to maintain a positive self-image and to feel like a moral person (Aronson, Cohen, & Nail, 1999;Schlenker, 1980;Steele, 1988). Furthermore, central theories of human behavior highlight humans' desire for cognitive consistency in their thoughts, feelings, and behavior (Festinger, 1957;Heider, 1946). Intriguing research on moral licensing qualifies this desire for consistency by suggesting that individuals who behave in a morally laudable way, later feel more justified to perform a morally questionable action (Merritt, Effron, & Monin, 2010;Miller & Effron, 2010 An important contribution to the literature on moral licensing examines how writing about one's own positive or negative traits can influence donations to charity and cooperative behavior in a commons dilemma (Sachdeva, Iliev, & Medin, 2009). In just 4 years since publication, this paper has been cited 129 times (Google Scholar, November 27, 2013). Based on their findings, the authors argued that this moral licensing effect can best be interpreted as part of a larger moral self-regulation framework where internal balancing of moral self-worth and the costs associated with prosocial behavior determine whether one will display (im)moral behavior. When the moral image o...

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“…Other studies in the literature support this idea of ethical mind-sets and how they affect moral behavior or under which conditions the mentioned patterns of moral behavior can occur. For example, Conway and Peetz (2012) previously showed that recalling moral behavior in a particular manner moderates, in a similar way as individual's ethical mind-sets, the impact of an initial ethical or unethical act on the likelihood of behaving ethically on a subsequent occasion. They showed that recalling prosocial behavior in a concrete fashion (focusing people on the specifics of the action itself, i.e.…”

Section: Outcome-based Mind-sets Vs Rule-based Mind-setsmentioning

confidence: 99%