The Influence of Others' Prior Moral Actions on Moral Behavior

This chapter considers remaining empirical challenges to the idea that we’re commonly motivated to do what’s right for the right reasons. Two key factors threaten to defeat claims to virtuous motivation, self-interest (egoism) and arbitrary situational factors (situationism). Both threats aim to identify defective influences on moral behavior that reveal us to be commonly motivated by the wrong reasons. However, there are limits to such wide-ranging skeptical arguments. Ultimately, like debunking arguments, defeater challenges succumb to a Defeater’s Dilemma: one can identify influences on many of our morally relevant behaviors that are either substantial or arbitrary, but not both. The science suggests a familiar trade-off in which substantial influences on many morally relevant actions are rarely defective. Arriving at this conclusion requires carefully scrutinizing a range of studies, including those on framing effects, dishonesty, implicit bias, mood effects, and moral hypocrisy (vs. integrity).

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Moral behavior in games: A review and call for additional research

New Ideas in Psychology ◽

10.1016/j.newideapsych.2021.100912 ◽

2022 ◽

Vol 64 ◽

pp. 100912

Author(s):

Evan Clarkson

Keyword(s):

Moral Behavior ◽

Additional Research

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Bracketed Morality Revisited: How Do Athletes Behave in Two Contexts?

Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology ◽

10.1123/jsep.35.5.449 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 35 (5) ◽

pp. 449-463 ◽

Cited By ~ 27

Author(s):

Maria Kavussanu ◽

Ian D. Boardley ◽

Sam S. Sagar ◽

Christopher Ring

Keyword(s):

Moral Reasoning ◽

Prosocial Behavior ◽

Antisocial Behavior ◽

Goal Orientation ◽

Moral Disengagement ◽

Empirical Support ◽

Moral Behavior ◽

Male And Female ◽

Ego Orientation ◽

Highly Correlated

The concept of bracketed morality has received empirical support in several sport studies (e.g., Bredemeier & Shields, 1986a, 1986b). However, these studies have focused on moral reasoning. In this research, we examined bracketed morality with respect to moral behavior in sport and university contexts, in two studies. Male and female participants (Study 1: N = 331; Study 2: N = 372) completed questionnaires assessing prosocial and antisocial behavior toward teammates and opponents in sport and toward other students at university. Study 2 participants also completed measures of moral disengagement and goal orientation in both contexts. In most cases, behavior in sport was highly correlated with behavior at university. In addition, participants reported higher prosocial behavior toward teammates and higher antisocial behavior toward opponents in sport than toward other students at university. The effects of context on antisocial behavior were partially mediated by moral disengagement and ego orientation. Our findings extend the bracketed morality concept to prosocial and antisocial behavior.

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Mental Money Laundering: A Motivated Violation of Fungibility

Journal of the European Economic Association ◽

10.1093/jeea/jvaa059 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Alex Imas ◽

George Loewenstein ◽

Carey K Morewedge

Keyword(s):

Public Policy ◽

Money Laundering ◽

Consumer Choice ◽

Mental Accounting ◽

Moral Behavior ◽

Corporate Behavior ◽

Mixed Support ◽

New Evidence ◽

As If

Abstract People exploit flexibility in mental accounting to relax psychological constraints on spending. Four studies demonstrate this in the context of moral behavior. The first study replicates prior findings that people donate more money to charity when they earned it through unethical versus ethical means. However, when the unethically-earned money is first “laundered”––the cash is physically exchanged for the same amount but from a different arbitrary source—people spent it as if it was earned ethically. This mental money laundering represents an extreme violation of fungibility. The second study demonstrates that mental money laundering generalizes to cases in which ethically and unethically earned money are mixed. When gains from ethical and unethical sources were pooled, people spent the entire pooled sum as if it was ethically earned. The last two studies provide mixed support for the prediction that people actively seek out laundering opportunities for unethically earned money, suggesting partial sophistication about these effects. These findings provide new evidence for the ease with which people can rationalize misbehavior, and have implications for consumer choice, corporate behavior and public policy.

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