Moral negotiations occur in head

It's called moral licensing:

We drink Diet Coke -- with Quarter Pounders and fries at McDonald's. We go to the gym -- and ride the elevator to the second floor. We install tankless water heaters -- then take longer showers. We drive SUVs to see Al Gore's speeches on global warming.

.... It seems that we have a good/bad balance sheet in our heads that we're probably not even aware of. For many people, doing good makes it easier -- and often more likely -- to do bad. It works in reverse, too: Do bad, then do good.

"We have these internal negotiations going in our heads all day, even if we don't know it," said Benoît Monin, a social psychologist who studies moral licensing at Stanford University. "People's past behavior literally gives them license to do that next thing, which might not be good."

The implications of moral licensing are vast, stretching beyond consumer decisions and into politics and environmental policy. Monin published a study showing that voters given an opportunity to endorse Barack Obama for president were more likely to later favor white people for job openings.

Read it all.

The survey is now closed. [July 30]

Results are discussed here.

Posted by John B. Chilton on July 21, 2010 9:53 PM | |
Comments (3)

I am curious about the results...will you be posting them, John?

Peter Carey+
http://santospopsicles.blogspot.com

Posted by Peter [TypeKey Profile Page] | July 22, 2010 7:53 AM

Yes, Peter, I will pass along the results after response rate drops off. So far we've had 87 responses.

Posted by John B. Chilton [TypeKey Profile Page] | July 22, 2010 10:13 AM

Here are the results.

https://spreadsheets.google.com/gform?key=0AoThylqlWL0BdHB5cGFvX3c4Z2tpZWFrS2p3bGJBQXc&hl=en&gridId=0#chart

Nothing to get excited about. Of the 143 respondents there were some who confessed to some moral negotiations.

I wonder if there wasn't some dissembling. Surely there are lots of folks who get a diet drink with a calorie heavy meal. Or perhaps those sorts of folks didn't respond to the survey.

The questions might of been narrowly answered. If you don't eat many quarter pounders you might feel justified in answering not at all.

Of it could be that moral negotiations occur in a more disconnected way. For example, you might not feel so much guilt ignoring someone in need if you are also an ardent environmentalist.

Posted by John B. Chilton [TypeKey Profile Page] | July 30, 2010 10:56 PM

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