Recent research on the dynamics of moral behavior has documented two contrasting phenomena—moral consistency and moral balancing. Moral balancing refers to the phenomenon whereby behaving ethically or unethically decreases the likelihood of engaging in the same type of behavior again later. Moral consistency describes the opposite pattern—engaging in ethical or unethical behavior increases the likelihood of engaging in the same type of behavior later on. The three studies reported here supported the hypothesis that individuals’ ethical mind-set (i.e., outcome-based vs. rule-based) moderates the impact of an initial ethical or unethical act on the likelihood of behaving ethically on a subsequent occasion. More specifically, an outcome-based mind-set facilitated moral balancing, and a rule-based mind-set facilitated moral consistency.
AlbarracínD.WyerR. S. (2000). The cognitive impact of past behavior: Influences on beliefs, attitudes, and future behavioral decisions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 5–22.
2.
AlexanderL.MooreM. (2008). Deontological ethics. In ZaltaE. N. (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. Stanford, CA: Metaphysics Research Lab, Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University. Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-deontological/
3.
AquinoK.ReedA. (2002). The self-importance of moral identity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 1423–1440.
4.
AronsonE.CarlsmithJ. M. (1962). Performance expectancy as a determinant of actual performance. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 65, 178–182. doi:10.1037/h0042291
5.
BanduraA. (1999). Moral disengagement in the perpetration of inhumanities. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 3, 193–209. doi:10.1207/s15327957pspr0303_3
6.
BaronJ.SprancaM. (1997). Protected values. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 70, 1–16.
7.
BartelsD. M.MedinD. L. (2007). Are morally motivated decision makers insensitive to the consequences of their choices?Psychological Science, 18, 24–28. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01843.x
8.
BemD. J. (1972). Self-perception theory. In BerkowitzL. (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 6, pp. 1–62). New York, NY: Academic Press.
9.
CialdiniR. B.TrostM. R.NewsomJ. T. (1995). Preference for consistency: The development of a valid measure and the discovery of surprising behavioral implications. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 318–328. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.69.2.318
10.
CornelissenG.PandelaereM.WarlopL.DewitteS. (2008). Positive cueing: Promoting sustainable consumer behavior by cueing common environmental behaviors as environmental. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 25, 46–55.
11.
CrockerJ.KnightK. M. (2005). Contingencies of self-worth. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 14, 200–203.
12.
DetertJ. R.TreviñoL. K.SweitzerV. L. (2008). Moral disengagement in ethical decision making: A study of antecedents and outcomes. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93, 374–391. doi:10.1037/0021-9010.93.2.374
13.
FestingerL. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
14.
FishbachA.DharR.ZhangY. (2006). Subgoals as substitutes or complements: The role of goal accessibility. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91, 232–242. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.91.2.232
15.
FishbachA.ZhangY. (2009). The dynamics of self-regulation: When goals commit versus liberate. In WänkeM. (Ed.), Social psychology of consumer behavior (pp. 365–386). New York, NY: Psychology Press.
16.
FootP. (1967). The problem of abortion and the doctrine of double effect. Oxford Review, 5, 5–15.
17.
FossR. D.DempseyC. B. (1979). Blood donation and the foot-in-the-door technique: A limiting case. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 580–590. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.37.4.580
HigginsE. T. (1987). Self-discrepancy: A theory relating self and affect. Psychological Review, 94, 319–340. doi:10.1037/0033-295x.94.3.319
20.
JordanJ.GinoF.TenbrunselA. E.LeliveldM. (2012). Moral self-image: Measuring the malleability of the moral self. Manuscript in preparation.
21.
JordanJ.MullenE.MurnighanJ. K. (2011). Striving for the moral self: The effects of recalling past moral actions on future moral behavior. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 37, 701–713. doi:10.1177/0146167211400208
22.
KhanU.DharR. (2006). Licensing effect in consumer choice. Journal of Marketing Research, 43, 259–266.
23.
KlassE. T. (1978). Psychological effects of immoral actions: The experimental evidence. Psychological Bulletin, 85, 756–771.
24.
MazarN.AmirO.ArielyD. (2008). The dishonesty of honest people: A theory of self-concept maintenance. Journal of Marketing Research, 45, 633–644.
25.
MazarN.ArielyD. (2006). Dishonesty in everyday life and its policy implications. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 25, 117–126. doi:10.1509/jppm.25.1.117
26.
MerrittA. C.EffronD. A.MoninB. (2010). Moral self-licensing: When being good frees us to be bad. Social & Personality Psychology Compass, 4, 344–357. doi:10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010.00263.x
27.
MoninB.JordanA. H. (2009). The dynamic moral self: A social psychological perspective. In NarvaezD.LapsleyD. K. (Eds.), Personality, identity, and character: Explorations in moral psychology (pp. 341–354). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
28.
NisanM. (1991). The moral balance model: Theory and research extending our understanding of moral choice and deviation. In KurtinesW. M.GewirtzJ. L. (Eds.), Handbook of moral behavior and development (Vol. 3, 213–250). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
29.
PreacherK. J.RuckerD. D.HayesA. F. (2007). Addressing moderated mediation hypotheses: Theory, methods, and prescriptions. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 42, 185–227. doi:10.1080/00273170701341316
30.
SachdevaS.IlievR.MedinD. L. (2009). Sinning saints and saintly sinners. Psychological Science, 20, 523–528. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02326.x
31.
SingerM. G. (1961). Generalization in ethics: An essay in the logic of ethics, with the rudiments of a system of moral philosophy. New York, NY: Knopf.
32.
SingerP. (1991). A companion to ethics. Oxford, England: Blackwell Reference.
33.
Sinnott-ArmstrongW. (2008). Consequentialism. In ZaltaE. N. (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. Stanford, CA: Metaphysics Research Lab, Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University. Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consequentialism/
34.
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, 845–851.
35.
TaylorS. E. (1975). On inferring one’s attitudes from one’s behavior: Some delimiting conditions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 31, 126–131. doi:10.1037/h0076246
36.
TenbrunselA. E.MessickD. M. (2004). Ethical fading: The role of self-deception in unethical behavior. Social Justice Research, 17, 223–236.
37.
TetlockP. E.KristelO. V.ElsonS. B.GreenM. C.LernerJ. S. (2000). The psychology of the unthinkable: Taboo trade-offs, forbidden base rates, and heretical counterfactuals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 853–870.
38.
ThomasG.BatsonC. D. (1981). Effect of helping under normative pressure on self-perceived altruism. Social Psychology Quarterly, 44, 127–131. doi:10.2307/3033708
39.
UhlmannE. L.PizarroD. A.TannenbaumD.DittoP. H. (2009). The motivated use of moral principles. Judgment and Decision Making, 4, 476–491.
40.
ZhongC.-B.LiljenquistK.CainD. M. (2009). Moral self-regulation: Licensing and compensation. In De CremerD. (Ed.), Psychological perspectives on ethical behavior and decision making (pp. 75–89). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.
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.
