Changing Ethically Troublesome Behavior: The Causes, Consequences, and Solutions to Motivated Resistance

Abstract

AbstractEthical dilemmas are common. Just as commonly, however, these motivational conflicts are overlooked or actively avoided in behavioral decision making. Raising awareness of the ethical implications of action can be a powerful route to changing behavior, yet this approach also risks defensive responding and the potential for backfire effects. Current models of behavior change are not well equipped to predict how people respond to behavior change interventions which seek to make salient ethical conflict. Drawing on research in the field of behavioral ethics, I detail why models of behavior change need to account for defensive responding when people are confronted with their own ethical conflicts. Furthermore, failing to understand the role of this motivated resistance leaves open the possibility of increased commitment to, rather than attempts to change, ethically troublesome behavior. In this review, I will focus my analysis on the issue of meat‐eating. Most people eat meat, yet many of these same individuals also experience ethical conflict around their meat‐consumption. Drawing on dissonance theorizing, I present an overview of the pressure points where behavior can be challenged on ethical grounds, the various strategies that individuals may use to avoid change, and ideas on how best to achieve change while also avoiding motivated resistance. This analysis will provide a working model for policymakers to understand how to design effective behavior change campaigns that draw on the power of ethical arguments while also avoiding the possibility of motivated resistance.