Although two people could both enact similar forms of hypocrisy, one person might be judged as more hypocritical than the other. The present research advances a novel, theoretical explanation for a paradigmatic instance of this: the increased hypocrisy ascribed to contradicting a morally (vs. nonmorally) based attitude. In contrast to prior explanations, the present research shows that people infer targets holding morally (vs. nonmorally) based attitudes are more difficult to change. Consequently, when people are hypocritical on these stances, it elicits greater surprise, which amplifies the perceived hypocrisy. Through both statistical mediation and experimental moderation, we provide evidence for this process and show how our explanation generalizes to understanding heightened hypocrisy in other contexts, too (i.e., violating nonmoral attitudes held with certainty vs. uncertainty). Altogether, we provide an integrative, theoretical lens for predicting when moral and nonmoral acts of hypocrisy will be perceived as particularly hypocritical.
AramovichN. P.LytleB. L.SkitkaL. J. (2012). Opposing torture: Moral conviction and resistance to majority influence. Social Influence, 7(1), 21–34. https://doi.org/10.1080/15534510.2011.640199
3.
BardenJ.RuckerD. D.PettyR. E. (2005). “Saying one thing and doing another”: Examining the impact of event order on hypocrisy judgments of others. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 31(11), 1463–1474. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167205276430
4.
BhattiY.HansenK. M.OlsenA. L. (2013). Political hypocrisy: The effect of political scandals on candidate evaluations. Acta Politica, 48(4), 408–428.
DursoG. R. O.PettyR. E.BriñolP.SievJ. J.HinsenkampL.SawickiV. (2021). Dampening affect via expectations: The case of ambivalence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 121(6), 1172–1194. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspa0000248
7.
EffronD. A.MarkusH. R.JackmanL. M.MuramotoY.MulukH. (2018). Hypocrisy and culture: Failing to practice what you preach receives harsher interpersonal reactions in independent (vs. interdependent) cultures. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 76, 371–384. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2017.12.009
8.
EffronD. A.MillerD. T. (2015). Do as I say, not as I’ve done: Suffering for a misdeed reduces the hypocrisy of advising others against it. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 131, 16–32. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2015.07.004
9.
FaulF.ErdfelderE.LangA.-G.BuchnerA. (2007). G*Power 3: A flexible statistical power analysis program for the social, behavioral, and biomedical sciences. Behavior Research Methods, 39, 175–191. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03193146
10.
FosterM. I.KeaneM. T. (2015). Why some surprises are more surprising than others: Surprise as a metacognitive sense of explanatory difficulty. Cognitive Psychology, 81, 74–116. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogpsych.2015.08.004
11.
HaleW. J.PillowD. R. (2015). Asymmetries in perceptions of self and others’ hypocrisy: Rethinking the meaning and perception of the construct. European Journal of Social Psychology, 45(1), 88–98. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2064
12.
HayesA. F. (2018). Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis: A regression-based approach. Guilford Press.
13.
HuppertE.HerzogN.LandyJ.LevineE. (2023). On being honest about dishonesty: The social costs of taking nuanced (but realistic) moral stances. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspa0000340
14.
JordanJ. J.SommersR.BloomP.RandD. G. (2017). Why do we hate hypocrites? Evidence for a theory of false signaling. Psychological Science, 28(3), 356–368. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797616685771
15.
KougiannouN. K.WallisM. O. (2020). Chimneys don’t belch out carnations!’ The (in)tolerance of corporate hypocrisy: A case study of trust and community engagement strategies. Journal of Business Research, 114, 348–362. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.08.029
16.
KrepsT. A.LaurinK.MerrittA. C. (2017). Hypocritical flip-flop, or courageous evolution? When leaders change their moral minds. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 113(5), 730–752. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000103
17.
KrepsT. A.MoninB. (2014). Core values versus common sense: Consequentialist views appear less rooted in morality. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 40(11), 1529–1542. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167214551154
LaurentS. M.ClarkB. A. (2019). What makes hypocrisy? Folk definitions, attitude/behavior combinations, attitude strength, and private/public distinctions. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 41(2), 104–121. https://doi.org/10.1080/01973533.2018.1556160
20.
LaurentS. M.ClarkB. A.WalkerS.WisemanK. D. (2014). Punishing hypocrisy: The roles of hypocrisy and moral emotions in deciding culpability and punishment of criminal and civil moral transgressors. Cognition & Emotion, 28(1), 59–83. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2013.801339
21.
LitmanL.RobinsonJ.AbberbockT. (2017). TurkPrime.com: A versatile crowdsourcing data acquisition platform for the behavioral sciences. Behavior Research Methods, 49(2), 433–442.
22.
LuttrellA.PettyR. E.BriñolP.WagnerB. C. (2016). Making it moral: Merely labeling an attitude as moral increases its strength. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 65, 82–93. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2016.04.003
23.
LuttrellA.PettyR. E.ChangJ.TogansL. J. (2022). The role of dialecticism in objective and subjective ambivalence. British Journal of Social Psychology, 61(3), 826–841. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12504
24.
LuttrellA.Philipp-MullerA.PettyR. E. (2019). Challenging moral attitudes with moral messages. Psychological Science, 30, 1136–1150. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797619854706
25.
LuttrellA.SawickiV. (2020). Attitude strength: Distinguishing predictors versus defining features. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 14(8), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12555
26.
MaguireR.MaguireP.KeaneM. T. (2011). Making sense of surprise: An investigation of the factors influencing surprise judgments. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 37(1), 176–186. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0021609
27.
MellersB. A.SchwartzA.HoK.RitovI. (1997). Decision affect theory: Emotional reactions to the outcomes of risky options. Psychological Science, 8(6), 423–429. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.1997.tb00455.x
28.
MoninB.MerrittA. (2012). Moral hypocrisy, moral inconsistency, and the struggle for moral integrity. In MikulincerM.ShaverP. R. (Eds.), The social psychology of morality: Exploring the causes of good and evil (pp. 167–184). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/13091-009
29.
NoordewierM. K.TopolinskiS.Van DijkE. (2016). The temporal dynamics of surprise. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 10(3), 136–149. https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12242
30.
O’ConnorK.EffronD. A.LucasB. J. (2020). Moral cleansing as hypocrisy: When private acts of charity make you feel better than you deserve. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 119(3), 540–559. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspa0000195
31.
PetrocelliJ. V.ClarksonJ. J.TormalaZ. L.HendrixK. S. (2010). Perceiving stability as a means to attitude certainty: The role of implicit theories of attitudes. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 46(6), 874–883. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2010.07.012
32.
PettyR. E.KrosnickJ. A. (Eds.). (1995). Attitude strength: Antecedents and consequences. Lawrence Erlbaum.
33.
Philipp-MullerA. Z.WallaceL. E.WegenerD. T. (2020). Where does moral conviction fit? A factor analytic approach examining antecedents to attitude strength. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 86, Article 103900. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2019.103900
34.
ReisenzeinR.HorstmannG.SchützwohlA. (2019). The cognitive-evolutionary model of surprise: A review of the evidence. Topics in Cognitive Science, 11(1), 50–74. https://doi.org/10.1111/tops.12292
35.
RobinsonJ. S.Page-GouldE.PlaksJ. E. (2017). I appreciate your effort: Asymmetric effects of actors’ exertion on observers’ consequentialist versus deontological judgments. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 73, 50–64. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2017.06.005
36.
RossL.NisbettR. E. (1991). The person and the situation: Perspectives of social psychology. Pinter & Martin Publishers.
37.
RuckerD. D.TormalaZ. L.PettyR. E.BriñolP. (2014). Consumer conviction and commitment: An appraisal-based framework for attitude certainty. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 24(1), 119–136. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcps.2013.07.001
38.
ShepperdJ. A.McNultyJ. K. (2002). The affective consequences of expected and unexpected outcomes. Psychological Science, 13(1), 85–88. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9280.00416
39.
SkitkaL. J.BaumanC. W.SargisE. G. (2005). Moral conviction: Another contributor to attitude strength or something more?Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88(6), 895–917. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.88.6.895
40.
SkitkaL. J.MorganG. S. (2014). The social and political implications of moral conviction. Political Psychology, 35(1), 95–110. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12166
41.
SpencerS. J.ZannaM. P.FongG. T. (2005). Establishing a causal chain: Why experiments are often more effective than mediational analyses in examining psychological processes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89(6), 845–851. https://doi.org/Doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.89.6.845
42.
Spencer-RodgersJ.PengK.WangL. (2010). Dialecticism and the co-occurrence of positive and negative emotions across cultures. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 41(1), 109–115. https://https://doi.org/doi.org/10.1177/0022022109349508
43.
TeenyJ. D.PettyR. E. (2022). Attributions of emotion and reduced attitude openness prevent people from engaging others with opposing views. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 102, Article 104373. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2022.104373
44.
TeenyJ. D.SievJ. J.BriñolP.PettyR. E. (2021). A review and conceptual framework for understanding personalized matching effects in persuasion. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 31(2), 382–414. https://doi.org/10.1002/jcpy.1198
ValdesoloP.DeStenoD. (2008). The duality of virtue: Deconstructing the moral hypocrite. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44(5), 1334–1338. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2008.03.010
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
