Anticipatory Guilt Research Articles

What’s moral wiggle room? A theory specification

Abstract The term ‘moral wiggle room’ (MWR) is often used to describe features of social situations that reduce the transparency between behaviors and their consequences. Previous research found that MWR decreases the likelihood of prosocial behavior and inferred that prosocial behavior is driven not only by genuine prosocial preferences but also by the desire to appear prosocially. Unfortunately, this postulation has never been specified as a theory. Consequently, studies testing the MWR effect reveal substantial heterogeneity in the understanding of core concepts, their operationalizations, and boundary conditions. To advance the field of MWR research, we remove these ambiguities by providing a verbal proposition-based theory specification. We first outline the original formulation of the MWR effect and its mediating mechanism, and we identify its loopholes. On this basis, we propose, refine, and distinguish between core propositions and auxiliary assumptions as well as relevant concepts and their operationalizations. The result is a fully testable theory of MWR (MWR-T) that includes a sharpened concept of MWR, distinguishes between three underlying psychological mechanisms of the behavioral MWR effect (i.e., anticipated social image damage, perceived social norms, and anticipatory guilt), and takes into account the role of individual differences in susceptibility to MWR (i.e., the joint effect of dispositional other-regarding preferences and social image concerns). Lastly, we relate MWR-T to existing theories and draw a roadmap for future work. With our contribution, we hope to stimulate more rigorous research on MWR and provide an example of the utility of verbal proposition-based theory specification.

Beyond sugar: Exploring the influence of health and naturalness framing on attitudes towards products with sweet proteins in Europe

Amidst rising obesity rates in the EU and the significant public health impact of excessive sugar consumption, the debate on reducing sugar through reformulation with sweet proteins derived from precision fermentation gains prominence, presenting a viable alternative to traditional sugars and conventional sweeteners. We conducted two studies to investigate the effects of health (emphasizing sugar reduction) versus naturalness (highlighting sweet proteins as alternatives to artificial sweeteners) message framing on the acceptance of products reformulated with sweet proteins. Study 1 (N = 296, Denmark) evaluated the impact of health and naturalness message framing on attitudes towards such reformulations. Study 2, in a cross-cultural sample (N = 3,000 Denmark, Germany, and Poland), tested the mediating role of health perceptions and the moderating effects of BMI and guilt (Study 2a), as well as naturalness perceptions, sweetener use, and pleasure (Study 2b) on product attitudes. Results of Study 1 indicated that healthiness perceptions had a more persuasive influence than naturalness perceptions. The cross-cultural findings of Studies 2a and 2b revealed that BMI, sweetener usage frequency, anticipatory guilt, and pleasure can modulate these effects. These insights suggest that while both perceived healthiness and naturalness shape attitudes towards sweet protein-enriched products, the significance of health perceptions prevails, with anticipatory emotions of guilt enhancing this influence, particularly when sweet proteins substitute added sugar. Such evidence holds substantial implications for strategies aimed at reducing sugar consumption and fostering the acceptance of products containing alternative sweeteners.

Service robots vs. human staff: The effect of service agents and service exclusion on unethical consumer behavior

Many hotels and restaurants deploy service robots to improve the quality and efficiency of customer service, but this approach inevitably poses some risks and challenges. This study followed recent research on the ethical issues of new technologies and explored how customers react to different service agents (service robots vs. human staff) under service exclusion vs. inclusion. In four experiments, we found that in the hospitality industry, customers exhibited more unethical consumer behavior (UCB) when excluded by human staff (vs. service robots) under service exclusion, but more UCB when served by service robots (vs. human staff) under service inclusion. Moreover, anticipatory guilt mediated the interaction effect of service agents and service exclusion on UCB. In addition, we found that anthropomorphism strengthened UCB toward service robots under service exclusion and weakened UCB toward service robots under service inclusion. The results of the study not only extend theories related to service exclusion, but also provide a deeper understanding of ethical issues in human-robot interactions.

Consumer Responses to AI-Generated Charitable Giving Ads

Content created by employing artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms, also known as synthetic content, promises to radically change the advertising and marketing landscape in the coming decades, presumably for the better. It is fundamental for advertising and marketing scholars and practitioners to have solid knowledge of how synthetic content is perceived by consumers before widespread adoption is promoted. Across three experimental studies we tested how consumers in charitable giving contexts reacted to advertising messages featuring content generated by an AI neural network. We show that potential donors responded differently to children’s faces when they knew they had been generated by AI. Study 1 established that awareness of the falsity of a face or its status as an AI-generated image has a negative impact on donation intentions. This negative impact is serially mediated by empathy and anticipatory guilt and empathy and emotion perception. Study 2 investigated several motives for employing AI-generated images and indicated that charities employing those images can benefit by making their ethical motives salient. Finally, Study 3 revealed that under extraordinary circumstances the use of AI images by charities is considered acceptable by consumers and is likely to lead to similar outcomes as the use of real images. Therefore, we recommend a cautious approach to the adoption of synthetic content.

Do moral disengagers experience guilt following workplace misconduct? Consequences for emotional exhaustion and task performance

SummaryAccording to Bandura, moral disengagement facilitates misconduct by minimizing feelings of guilt that normally arise when one contemplates wrongdoing. While trait moral disengagement has been negatively associated with anticipatory guilt, scholars have yet to fully consider its impact on guilt post‐misconduct. In this paper, we examine the indirect effects of trait moral disengagement on post‐misconduct guilt, and downstream effects on employees' mental health and performance. Lastly, we explore the moderating role of post‐misconductstatemoral disengagement in shaping the effects of trait moral disengagement. Across three studies, we find that trait moral disengagement ispositivelylinked to guilt following interpersonal deviance, unethical work behavior, and objective cheating behavior. Further, trait moral disengagement is indirectly, positively linked to emotional exhaustion and negatively related to executive function (specifically, the capacity to inhibit distraction during tasks). In a fourth study, we find that trait moral disengagement is positively associated with guilt and subsequent emotional exhaustion when individuals employ little to no state moral disengagement immediately post‐misconduct. In contrast, trait moral disengagement is negatively linked to guilt and emotional exhaustion when individuals employ state moral disengagement post‐misconduct. We discuss the implications of these findings for advancing moral disengagement theory and research.

‘Why should I feel guilty? I always give my best’. Guilt in Spanish women caring for dependent relatives from a gender perspective

Objectives The sense of guilt in informal caregivers has been associated with lower levels of overall life-satisfaction, an increase in feelings of overwork, stress, and health problems, including anxiety and depression. Even though women who care for dependent relatives have higher levels of feelings of guilt than male caregivers, little research has been done on the dynamics of guilt from a gender perspective. This study examines the dynamics of this moral emotion in women caregivers’ psychosocial health. Methods This study is based on semi-structured interviews with nineteen Spanish women who are informal caregivers looking after dependent family members. The interviews were subsequently transcribed and subjected to thematic analysis. Results Three themes emerged from qualitative analysis: first, doing more for the people being cared for than for oneself; secondly, being demanding on oneself; and thirdly, controlling one’s own desires. Conclusion The results show dynamics of self-control that seem to function as mechanisms for the women caregivers to avoid feelings of guilt, but at the price of taking on greater caring responsibilities, denying their own desires, and endangering their psychosocial health. We consider that intervention to help women reduce anticipatory guilt is essential, as these feelings put women caregivers’ psychosocial health at risk.

Understanding guilt-related interpersonal dysfunction in obsessive-compulsive personality disorder through computational modeling of two social interaction tasks.

Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD) is a high-prevalence personality disorder characterized by subtle but stable interpersonal dysfunction. There have been only limited studies addressing the behavioral patterns and cognitive features of OCPD in interpersonal contexts. The purpose of this study was to investigate how behaviors differ between OCPD individuals and healthy controls (HCs) in the context of guilt-related interpersonal responses. A total of 113 participants were recruited, including 46 who were identified as having OCPD and 67 HCs. Guilt-related interpersonal responses were manipulated and measured with two social interactive tasks: the Guilt Aversion Task, to assess how anticipatory guilt motivates cooperation; and the Guilt Compensation Task, to assess how experienced guilt induces compensation behaviors. The guilt aversion model and Fehr-Schmidt inequity aversion model were adopted to analyze decision-making in the Guilt Aversion Task and the Guilt Compensation Task, respectively. Computational model-based results demonstrated that, compared with HCs, the OCPD group exhibited less guilt aversion when making cooperative decisions as well as less guilt-induced compensation after harming others. Our findings indicate that individuals with OCPD tend to be less affected by guilt than HCs. These impairments in guilt-related responses may prevent adjustments in behaviors toward compliance with social norms and thus result in interpersonal dysfunctions.

Guilt Induced Message Elaboration and Effect on Attitude towards Value Adoption: An ANCOVA Approach

Engagement in Voluntary Simplicity behaviour can be strongly attributed to contributing towards environmental protection through consumption reduction. The attitudinal inclination towards adopting VS values has mostly been observed on the degree of awareness and current behaviour of individuals. However similar to sustainability practices, VS adoption can also be instigated through external influences. In the present study, a pioneer effort is being undertaken to observe the degree of persuasive intent that can be created through the intervention of anticipatory guilt, argument quality, and source credibility manipulation. The sample was drawn from the Malaysian youth population using the multi-stage cluster sampling method. The result of ANCOVA analysis shows significant direct effects on each of the VS values namely material simplicity, social responsibility, self-sufficiency, and spiritual growth. We also found strong interaction effects of anticipatory guilt and argument quality at high and low intervention levels towards youth attitude.

The Negative Effects of Long Time Physical Activity Calorie Equivalent Labeling on Purchase Intention for Unhealthy Food.

(1) Background: Obesity has become a global epidemic that arouse much attention from governments, companies and scholar. Physical activity calorie equivalent (PACE) labels are introduced as a more effective nudge invention on less-calorie ordering. However, the effects of PACE labels are controversial in previous literature, thus, the research objective is to explore the effects of different PACE labels and furtherly to explore the underlying psychological mechanism; (2) Methods: Across four scenario-based experiments, involving potato chips, chocolate and cookies, this study manipulated the three calorie-information labeling (standard calorie label, long time PACE and short time PACE labels). Meanwhile, the mediating mechanism of the effects involving anticipatory guilt and the moderation effects between consumers’ future self-continuity and PACE labels are also measured; (3) Results: Results show that compared with the short time PACE and calorie labels, the longtime PACE labels have more negative influence on consumers’ purchase intention for unhealthy food. What’s more, the anticipatory guilt has negative effect of PACE labels as consumers are often prone to feeling guilty in the process of unhealthy food consumption. In addition, individuals with high future self-continuity have higher self-control and take more consideration of future outcomes, they are reluctant to choose unhealthy food than others; (4) Conclusions: Unhealthy food with a long time PACE label has more negative effect on consumers’ purchase intention rather than a short time PACE label. At the same time, companies that produce healthy foods should actively participate in the movement to label calories through the PACE labels.

AI increases unethical consumer behavior due to reduced anticipatory guilt

AI increases unethical consumer behavior due to reduced anticipatory guilt

Animals Like Us: Leveraging the Negativity Bias in Anthropomorphism to Reduce Beef Consumption.

Our current work contributes to the literature of meat consumption reduction. Capitalizing on the inherent humanizing characteristic of anthropomorphism coupled with leveraging negativity bias, we created a novel approach to reduce meat-eating intention. Using on-pack product stickers, we compare an anthropomorphic message stressing the capacity to experience pain with two other anthropomorphic messages that have been used before in the literature (intelligence and pro-social behavior of animals). We find that an on-pack pain anthropomorphic sticker reduces purchase intentions of the meat product and intention to consume meat in general and is more effective than stickers displaying pro-social or intelligence messages. We also show that the pain message’s negative impact on purchase intention is serially mediated by anticipatory guilt and attitude towards meat. In addition, we show that the differential effectiveness of the anthropomorphic messages can be explained by the negativity bias. That is, when the pro-social and intelligence messages were formulated in a negative way (as is pain), all three messages were equally effective at reducing intention to purchase meat and increase intention to reduce meat consumption.

Reflecting on meaning in an existential-reorientation group psychotherapy approach for cancer patients: A qualitative thematic analysis.

The objectives of this study were to evaluate, in the Italian cultural context, breast cancer patients' main meaning themes related to the experience of the disease, on the one side, and to be part of an existentially oriented group intervention, on the other. A short reorientation-existential (RET) group intervention, structured by using some tools and background from cognitive analytic therapy (CAT) and based on the meaning-centered psychotherapy (MCP) existential framework, was delivered to 29 breast cancer patients. The sessions were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim, with the narratives from reflective exercises (meaning of the journey cancer, meaning of the journey of intervention) uploaded to computer software NVivo 11. Analysis of the transcripts emerged from reflective exercises on the personal meaning of cancer and the letters of meaning (goodbye letter) written by the patients to express the meaning of their experience in the group was conducted through the interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) framework. Four superordinate themes were identified in the exercise meaning of the experience of cancer, namely "sense of stigma and loneliness (the foreigner)," "guilt (unjust guilt and anticipatory guilt)," "reconsidering one's own life and nostalgia," and "rebirth (a new life, life after life)." Three superordinate themes were found in the meaning of the group experience in the letters, namely "togetherness and gratitude," "legacy," and "acceptance." The study confirmed that a short group intervention, based on the existentially oriented framework and delivered in a public clinical healthcare setting, was enriched by focusing on the personal meaning of cancer. Some themes, such as loneliness, nostalgia, and rebirth, emerged during reflection giving, in written letters to participants, the sense of the group therapeutic experience.

Motivating Children to Become Green Kids: The Role of Victim Framing, Moral Emotions, and Responsibility on Children’s Pro-Environmental Behavioral Intent

ABSTRACT Today’s children comprise the generation that will need to deal with the severe consequences of climate change in the future. Hence, as stimulating children to grow up as environmentally conscious kids is crucial, this study examines how victim framing can affect children’s intentions to adopt pro-environmental behaviors. Specifically, it examines how a focus on negative consequences of climate change for animals versus landscapes stimulates children’s pro-environmental behavioral intent and whether attributed responsibility for climate change moderates these effects. A 2 (focus on loss of animals versus landscapes) x 2 (internal versus external attribution of responsibility) between-subjects factorial design was used to test the hypotheses. The results revealed that a message focusing on the loss of animals (vs. landscapes) led to higher empathy, which resulted in stronger anticipatory guilt, which in turn stimulated pro-environmental behavioral intent. Further, the results show that a victim frame focusing on the loss of animals (vs. landscapes) led to higher levels of climate-message avoidance and lower behavioral intent when the responsibility for climate change was attributed to an external (vs. internal) cause. This study offers valuable insights into the underlying motivations of children to behave in an environmentally friendly way.

Emotion: The forgotten component of legal socialization

AbstractLegal socialization researchers have largely ignored the importance of emotion in the legal socialization process and engagement in crime. The purpose of the current study was to argue the potential importance of moral emotions (e.g., guilt) in legal socialization and take a preliminary step to integrate an emotion component into an existing model. The current study investigated whether the moral emotion of guilt, using both proneness and anticipatory measures, would predict rule‐violating behavior (RVB) as part of the integrated cognitive legal socialization model. The study used survey data from 474 participants who were part of a longitudinal study of adolescent rule‐violating behavior. Results showed that guilt proneness functioned as a predictor of RVB in parallel with legal reasoning, while anticipatory guilt served as a mediator in parallel with normative attitude mediators. Enforcement status (i.e., feeling people should be punished for committing RVB) mediated the relation between guilt proneness and RVB, while normative status (i.e., approval for engaging in RVB) and anticipatory guilt mediated the relation between legal reasoning and RVB. These findings help to advance legal socialization by demonstrating the unique contribution of emotion in legal socialization theory and provide a foundation for future research in this area. The implications for the role of emotion in both the integrated cognitive legal socialization model and the procedural justice legal socialization model and future directions for further inquiry are discussed.

The impact of guilt and shame in charity advertising: The role of self‐construal

AbstractFollowing the cognitive functional model in persuasive communication and the self‐construal theory, this two‐study design project examines the impact of guilt and shame in charity advertising. Study 1 was a survey that investigated the extent to which anticipatory guilt and shame operate in affecting people's purchase intention relating to a product with social causes. Study 2 was an experiment that examined the impact of guilt versus shame appeals in processing charity advertising messages. The role of self‐construal was examined in both studies. Results indicated that both the anticipatory guilt and ad‐induced guilt were positively connected with behavioral intentions. People with higher interdependent self‐construal were more prone to charitable behaviors. The anticipatory shame was positively connected with behavioral intention, whereas the ad‐induced shame was not. In addition, self‐construal negatively moderated the effect of shame, such that the impact of anticipatory shame and shame arousal on behavioral intentions were more pronounced among people with higher independent self‐construal.

The Influence of Spending Guilt on the Consumer Decision-Making Process

The amount of money a consumer is willing to spend to acquire a good ought to be a valid measure of valuation. Instead, consumers rely on heuristics about how they should spend money. When consumers think about spending money in ways that violate their beliefs about how it should be spent, they anticipate feeling guilty which reduces the expected utility and the likelihood of making the purchase. Because of this anticipatory guilt, consumer decisions made in a spending context can lead to different outcomes than consumer decisions in equivalent contexts that do not use money. The results of Studies 1a-1c show that people have standards for how they should spend their money and anticipate feeling guilty if they consider violating them. Studies 2a-2b measure spending-guilt-proneness and test its effect on purchase intentions. In Study 3 the salience of spending norms is increased, reducing purchase intentions for hedonic goods. In Studies 4a, 4b, 5, and 6, the salience of money in preference measures is decreased, and when spending money is less salient, preferences for hedonic goods increase. Finally, in Studies 7a-7b reducing anticipated guilt mitigates this disutility.

Do Moral Disengagers Feel Guilt and Shame? Moral Self-Condemnation Following Immoral Work Behaviors

In the past decade, a number of studies have found a consistent, positive link between moral disengagement (Bandura, 1986) and immoral behaviors in the workplace. According to Bandura, this occurs because moral disengagement minimizes one’s anticipation of moral self- condemnation - feelings of guilt and shame that normally arise when one contemplates wrongdoing. Although research shows that moral disengagement is negatively associated with anticipatory guilt, scholars rarely consider its impact on self-condemning moral emotions after wrongdoing. In this paper, we examine the relationship between moral disengagement and experiences of guilt and shame following three types of immoral work behaviors - interpersonal deviance, (low) interpersonal citizenship behaviors (OCBI), and (low) cooperation. Across two studies using mixed methods, we find that moral disengagers experience guilt and shame following interpersonal deviance, (low) cooperation, and objectively measured cheating, but not (low) OCBI. In a third study, we show that moral disengagers exhibit greater psychological distress, turnover intentions, social loafing, and lower task performance as a result of their guilt and shame. We discuss the implications of these findings with respect to advancing moral disengagement and moral emotions theory in organizational scholarship.

“Animals are friends, not food”: Anthropomorphism leads to less favorable attitudes toward meat consumption by inducing feelings of anticipatory guilt

Why do people befriend animals, yet don't feel conflicted about eating some of them? Previous research on the “meat paradox” suggests that the dehumanization of meat animals plays a crucial role in attenuating the negative affective states that consumers may experience when consuming meat. However, relatively little is known about how the converse process, namely anthropomorphism, influences meat consumption. The current research provides evidence that anthropomorphizing meat animals through the friendship metaphor, “animals are friends”, can alter (omnivorous) consumers' attitudes and behavioral intentions toward meat eating, and induce feelings of guilt. More specifically, our experimental findings reveal that anthropomorphism has a negative effect on consumers' attitudes toward the food served in a restaurant and their intentions to patronize it when (pork) meat is on offer. This effect holds whether consumers are invited to consider themselves (Study 1a) or staff members (Study 1b) as taking part in a friendly human-animal interaction. We also demonstrate a similar effect of anthropomorphism on attitudes toward a (pork) meat product and their intentions to buy it, when consumers consider animal-animal friendship or human-animal friendship (Study 2). Last, we show that the negative effect of anthropomorphism on consumers' attitudes and behavioral intentions toward (pork) meat consumption is mediated by increased feelings of anticipatory guilt (Studies 3a and 3c). Nevertheless, no such effect was found with another kind of meat (beef), which indicates that anthropomorphizing meat animals through the friendship metaphor cannot be successfully applied to all commonly eaten species (Study 3b). Implications of these results for meat consumption are discussed.

“I won't let you down:” Personal ethical lapses arising from women’s advocating for others

The current research examines whether women’s personal ethics are compromised when representing others in strategic interactions. Across five studies (n = 1337), we demonstrate that women’s ethical choices are more sensitive to whether they are representing themselves versus advocating for others compared to men’s ethical choices. We find that other-advocating women are more deceptive than self-advocating women, whereas men are just as likely to engage in morally questionable behaviors when representing themselves or others. We further show that women’s unethical behavior is driven by their anticipatory guilt as they seek to not let their constituents down in an advocacy role. Relative to men, women’s ethical behavior when advocating on behalf of others is especially likely to reflect the presumed ethical preferences of their constituents rather than solely a reflection of their own ethical preferences. Given women’s relatively high personal ethics, these results establish a risk to adopting an advocacy role for women: the social considerations inherent to advocacy put pressure on women to engage in deceptive behaviors that compromise their personal ethics.

Understanding Crime Control Theater

Policies such as America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response Alerts, safe haven laws, Megan’s law, and three-strikes laws have provided the public with a feeling of safety and security. However, research has provided evidence that disputes their effectiveness. These types of laws and policies have become known as “crime control theater” (CCT) because they appear to be effective, serve the public’s best interests, and provide a crime control purpose but are largely ineffective and have unintended negative consequences. Using self-affirmation and emotion theory, this study examines potential explanations as to why individuals might support CCT policies. It also investigates whether support differs based on relevant characteristics (e.g., gender, sample type, and preexisting beliefs about policy effectiveness). Results suggest that females and Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) workers tend to support CCT policies more than males and college students. Further, the relationship between gender and support was mediated by anticipatory guilt, and this effect was stronger for individuals who did not believe in the effectiveness of the policy. Results suggest that individuals who believe the policy is effective will support it more than those who do not, regardless of their anticipated guilt. In contrast, those who doubt the policy only support it if they anticipate feeling guilty; this effect is stronger for women. Results can help explain why people support policies that are largely ineffective and suggest that relevance to the issue can help explain why some groups are more supportive than others.