Moral Balancing Research Articles

Influences of past moral behavior on future behavior: A review of sequential moral behavior studies using meta-analytic techniques.

Experimental research on sequential moral behavior (SMB) has found that engaging in an initial moral (or immoral) behavior can sometimes lead to moral balancing (i.e., switching between positive and negative behavior) and sometimes to moral consistency (i.e., maintaining a consistent pattern of positive or negative behavior). In two meta-analyses, we present the first comprehensive syntheses of SMB studies and test moderators to identify the conditions under which moral balancing and moral consistency are most likely to occur. Meta-Analysis 1 (k = 217 effect sizes, N = 31,242) revealed that engaging in an initial positive behavior only reliably resulted in moral licensing (i.e., balancing) in studies that measured engagement in negative target behaviors (Hedges' g = 0.25, 95% CI [0.16, 0.44]) and only resulted in positive consistency in foot-in-the-door studies using prosocial requests (Hedges' g = -0.44, 95% CI [-0.59, -0.29]). Meta-Analysis 2 (k = 132 effect sizes, N = 14,443) revealed that engaging in an initial negative behavior only reliably resulted in moral compensation (i.e., balancing) in studies that measured engagement in positive target behaviors (Hedges' g = 0.27, 95% CI [0.18, 0.37]). We found no evidence for reliable negative consistency effects in any conditions. These results cannot be readily explained by current theories of SMB effects, and so further research is needed to better understand the mechanisms that drive moral balancing and consistency under the conditions observed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Retail Karma: How Our Shopping Sins Influence Evaluation of Service Failures

Abstract Consumers have an intuitive belief in “karma” which dictates that bad (good) actions lead to bad (good) outcomes. Consequently, consumers perceive a causal connection between their own wrongdoing toward a company and a subsequent service failure that they experience in their interactions with another company. Eight experiments employing different contexts consistently show that consumers who have previously wronged a company (compared to those in a control group) evaluate another unrelated company more positively in response to a service failure by this company. We argue that this more positive evaluation is due to the greater blame consumers assign to themselves as dictated by the “karmic beliefs” held by consumers whereby the subsequent poor service by a different firm is seen as a karmic payback for their own prior transgression. The proposed effect is mitigated when a person’s karmic belief is reduced. We also examine a number of alternative explanations (e.g., negative experiences, moral balancing, and immanent justice reasoning) and find that our observed effect is more consistent with a karma-based account.

How Corporate Social (Ir)Responsibility Influences Employees’ Private Prosocial Behavior: An Experimental Study

The micro-level corporate social responsibility (CSR) literature has broadly demonstrated the effects of CSR on employees’ behavior but has mostly been limited to employees’ behavior within the work domain. This business-centered focus overlooks the potential of organizations to change employees’ private social and environmental behavior and thus to address grand societal challenges. Based on the social psychology literature on moral consistency and moral balancing, we conduct three experiments to investigate whether employees’ private prosocial behavior is consistent with their organization’s corporate social (ir)responsibility or whether employees aim to balance their private prosocial behavior, e.g., by compensating for their organization’s CSR activities with a reduced willingness to contribute outside the work domain. Our results provide support for a consistency effect such that employers’ environmental CSR activities increase employees’ donations and willingness to volunteer outside work. Environmental corporate social irresponsibility activities, on the contrary, reduce employees’ private donations and willingness to volunteer. We further find that the positive effects of environmental CSR are partly explained by the strengthening of employees’ environmental self-identity. Our findings highlight that organizational activities have consequences for employees’ moral behavior outside the work domain and thus have important implications for research and practice.

Moral Balancing in Video Games: The Moderating Role of Issue Congruency

Research has shown that performing moral or immoral actions in video games can affect the players’ moral self-worth and evoke moral emotions. People may compensate for their immoral behaviors by performing more moral actions, but sometimes performing moral actions can also license them to perform immoral behaviors later. The current study examines whether players engage in moral licensing or moral cleansing behaviors within and after video game moral scenarios. Study 1 is an exploratory study that examined a sequence of moral dilemmas in the game Papers, Please, and found that players alternated between choosing the moral choices and the accurate choices, indicating signs of moral balancing when faced with moral choices that conflict with their in-game goals. Study 2 utilized a 3 (moral vs. immoral vs. control) × 2 (congruent charity vs. incongruent charity) experiment using a moral event in the game Life is Strange to examine the moderating effects of issue congruency on moral balancing. Study 3 used three different games to replicate Study 2. The findings showed that players who performed moral actions in the game also devoted more efforts to a charity on a congruent issue. However, participants who performed a moral behavior in the game committed significantly less effort to a charity on an incongruent issue, indicating a moral licensing effect. Study 2 found that performing immoral actions in a game can motivate players to devote more efforts to a subsequent charity, regardless of issue congruity, but this moral cleansing effect was not observed in Study 3.

Kant and the Balance of Moral Forces

In the Doctrine of Virtue, Kant draws an analogy between the physical forces of repulsion and attraction and the moral forces of respect and love. I argue that we should interpret this passage as endorsing a moral version of the balancing argument from his natural philosophy. There, Kant argues that purely repulsive and attractive bodies respectively face problems of total dispersion and collapse. I argue that purely respectful and loving humans respectively face analogous problems of total moral dispersion and collapse. I conclude by drawing some significant implications of this moral balancing argument for contemporary theorizing about moral interactions, relationships, and communities.

When and why does prosocial rule-breaking behavior fall into dilemma? A moral balancing perspective

When and why does prosocial rule-breaking behavior fall into dilemma? A moral balancing perspective

When and Why Does Prosocial Rule-Breaking Behavior Fall into Dilemma? A Moral Balancing Perspective

Existing research has uniformly demonstrated that prosocial rule-breaking behavior is a double-edged sword. However, when and why it functions so is less studied. This article draws upon the moral balance model to propose that when the rules climate is high, employees who engage in prosocial rule-breaking behavior will subsequently perceive loss of moral credits, which in turn increases organizational citizenship behavior. Furthermore, when the rules climate is low, employees who engage in prosocial rule-breaking behavior will produce psychological entitlement, fueling counterproductive behavior. Results from an experiment and a multisource field study support our hypotheses. Taken together, our research provides new insight into understanding the perils and benefits of employees' prosocial rule-breaking behavior and reveals the importance of exploring organizational moral climate in this distinct process. Finally, implications for theory and implementation are discussed.

A Moral Balancing Perspective on Employees’ Unethical Pro-Organizational Behavior

The current paper seeks to develop and test a serial mediation model linking employees’ unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB) and their consequent pro-self and pro-customer deviance. Drawing upon moral balancing theory, cognitive appraisal theory of emotion, and affective events theory, we examine the moral licensing effect of employee UPB on their organizational deviance through feelings of pride and psychological entitlement. Simultaneously, we investigate the moral cleansing effect of employee UPB on their customer-directed prosocial rule breaking via perceived loss of moral credits and feelings of guilt. Additionally, we examine the moderating role of external attribution of UPB on the aforementioned indirect effects. The results based on 340 full-time employees and their supervisors support the proposed serial mediated relationships. The findings further indicate that the strength of those indirect effects varies depending on employees’ external attribution of UPB. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

A test of willingness to pay as penance in the demand for ethical consumption

This work uses an experimental design with random assignment to test the effect of guilt on demand for ethical product attributes, with a focus on goods produced by monasteries and other religiously affiliated organizations. On average, individuals assigned a positive premium to organic and local attributes, but only those with a religious affiliation assigned a positive value to the monastic attribute. Induction of reactive guilt was found to increase non-religious participants’ product ratings, but to decrease ratings among those with a religious affiliation. These findings suggest that the monastic attribute is not universally desirable despite that monastic, organic, and local producers share many of the same ethical principles. These results also underscore potentially important heterogeneity in moral cleansing behaviors by religious identity. The potential for religious identity to affect moral balancing has important implications for the study of pro-social and pro-environmental behavior, broadly, and ethical consumption, more specifically. Together, these findings contribute to the literature on the effect of moral emotions on economic behavior and provide the first analysis of willingness to pay for monastic goods.

Does helping now excuse cheating later? An investigation into moral balancing in children.

We often use our previous good behaviour to justify current immoral acts, and likewise perform good deeds to atone for previous immoral behaviour. These effects, known as moral self-licensing and moral cleansing (collectively, moral balancing), have yet to be observed in children. Thus, the aim in the current study was to investigate the developmental foundations of moral balancing. We examined whether children aged 4–5 years (N = 96) would be more likely to cheat on a task if they had previously helped a puppet at personal cost, and less likely to cheat if they had refused to help. This hypothesis was not supported, suggesting either that 4–5-year-old children do not engage in moral balancing or that the methodology used was not appropriate to capture this effect. We discuss implications and future research directions.

Symbolic Moral Self-Completion - Social Recognition of Prosocial Behavior Reduces Subsequent Moral Striving.

According to theories on moral balancing, a prosocial act can decrease people’s motivation to engage in subsequent prosocial behavior, because people feel that they have already achieved a positive moral self-perception. However, there is also empirical evidence showing that people actually need to be recognized by others in order to establish and affirm their self-perception through their prosocial actions. Without social recognition, moral balancing could possibly fail. In this paper, we investigate in two laboratory experiments how social recognition of prosocial behavior influences subsequent moral striving. Building on self-completion theory, we hypothesize that social recognition of prosocial behavior (self-serving behavior) weakens (strengthens) subsequent moral striving. In Study 1, we show that a prosocial act leads to less subsequent helpfulness when it was socially recognized as compared to a situation without social recognition. Conversely, when a self-serving act is socially recognized, it encourages subsequent helpfulness. In Study 2, we replicate the effect of social recognition on moral striving in a more elaborated experimental setting and with a larger participant sample. We again find that a socially recognized prosocial act leads to less subsequent helpfulness compared to an unrecognized prosocial act. Our results shed new light on the boundary conditions of moral balancing effects and underscore the view that these effects can be conceptualized as a dynamic of self-completion.

Truly Trustworthy or Simply Strategic? An Examination of Strategic Generosity in the Trust Game

The importance of trust and reciprocity in facilitating mutually beneficial exchange has long been recognized. However, research suggests that the development of trust and reciprocity may be challenging if the actions are considered to be strategically rather than intrinsically motivated. This paper investigates whether initial acts of generosity impact the emergence of trust and reciprocity across strategic and non-strategic settings. Results suggest that when generosity can be perceived as being strategic it induces less trust. As a result, our research suggests that strategic considerations can have a detrimental effect on welfare: earnings within equivalent trust games are lower in the strategic than in the non-strategic condition. Importantly, the observed generosity does not appear to have been strategic. Rather, it appears that simply the perception of strategic motivation is enough to reduce subsequent trust. On the other hand, we also observe that those subjects who acted more selfishly display significantly more reciprocity in the non-strategic relative to the strategic setting. This behavior appears consistent with moral balancing.

How Environmental (Ir)Responsibility of Companies Affects Environmental Behavior of Employees

Research on spillover versus compensation effects of work to non-work domains have yielded mixed findings in the human resource management (HRM) literature. In the social psychology literature, moral consistency versus moral balancing effects of an individuals’ own behavior are highly contested. In our study, we combine these theoretical lenses and argue that environmental corporate social (ir)responsibility (CSR and CSIR) may either spill over to (consistency effect) or compensate (balancing effect) for employees’ own moral behavior. In an experimental study, in which we randomly assign individuals to work for a company engaging either in CSR or CSIR, we investigate participants’ donation behavior. Our results indicate that individuals who work for a CSR compared to a CSIR company donate significantly more money to a charity that serves an environmental purpose, but not more money to a charity that serves a broader social mission.

Still a moral dilemma: how Ethiopian professionals providing abortion come to terms with conflicting norms and demands

BackgroundThe Ethiopian law on abortion was liberalized in 2005. However, as a strongly religious country, the new law has remained controversial from the outset. Many abortion providers have religious allegiances, which begs the question how to negotiate the conflicting demands of their jobs and their commitment to their patients on the one hand, and their religious convictions and moral values on the other.MethodA qualitative study based on in-depth interviews with 30 healthcare professionals involved in abortion services in either private/non-governmental clinics or in public hospitals in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Transcripts were analyzed using systematic text condensation, a qualitative analysis framework.ResultsFor the participants, religious norms and the view that the early fetus has a moral right to life count against providing abortion; while the interests and needs of the pregnant woman supports providing abortion services. The professionals weighed these value considerations differently and reached different conclusions. One group appears to have experienced genuine conflicts of conscience, while another group attempted to reconcile religious norms and values with their work, especially through framing provision of abortion as helping and preventing harm and suffering. The professionals handle this moral balancing act on their own. In general, participants working in the private sector reported less moral dilemma with abortion than did their colleagues from public hospitals.ConclusionsThis study highlights the difficulties in reconciling tensions between religious convictions and moral norms and values, and professional duties. Such insights might inform guidelines and healthcare ethics education.

High stakes: A little more cheating, a lot less charity

We explore the downstream consequences of cheating–and resisting the temptation to cheat–at high stakes on pro-social behaviour and self-perceptions. In a large online sample, we replicate the seminal finding that cheating rates are largely insensitive to stake size, even at a 500-fold increase. We present two new findings. First, resisting the temptation to cheat at high stakes led to negative moral spill-over, triggering a moral license: participants who resisted cheating in the high stakes condition subsequently donated a smaller fraction of their earnings to charity. Second, participants who cheated maximally mispredicted their perceived morality: although such participants thought they were less prone to feeling immoral if they cheated, they ended up feeling more immoral a day after the cheating task than immediately afterwards. We discuss the theoretical implications of our findings on moral balancing and self-deception, and the practical relevance for organisational design.

The Influence of Corporate Social Responsibility Efforts on the Moral Behavior of High Self‐Brand Overlap Consumers

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts are known to affect firm and societal outcomes, but little is known about their effects on consumer well‐being. We address this research gap by investigating whether consumers who have integrated their self‐schema with a brand's schema (i.e., high self‐brand overlap consumers) vicariously balance their moral behavior against a brand's CSR efforts. Specifically, we propose that a brand's socially responsible behavior can negatively influence the moral behavior of high self‐brand overlap consumers (vicarious moral licensing), while a brand's less socially responsible behavior can positively influence the moral behavior of these consumers (vicarious moral cleansing). Further, we do not predict or observe these effects among low self‐brand overlap consumers, given their lack of psychological identification with the CSR brand. Across four experiments, we demonstrate the vicarious moral balancing effect and show process evidence for the potential role of pride (guilt) in driving vicarious moral licensing (cleansing) behaviors. Importantly, we also demonstrate two potential methods to eliminate the vicarious moral licensing effect when firms conduct CSR efforts.

Every Saint has a Past, and Every Sinner has a Future: Influences of Regulatory Focus on Consumers’ Moral Self‐Regulation

Moral decisions in the marketplace largely depend on consumers’ own behavioral history. Psychology literature distinguishes two possible routes for consumers’ sequential moral decision making: moral balancing and moral consistency. Moral balancing refers to consumers’ deviation from the moral stance reflected in their past decisions; moral consistency implies that consumers repeat their prior moral and immoral decisions. Drawing on regulatory focus theory, four experimental studies affirm that balancing effects occur for consumers with a strong promotion focus, but consistency is more pronounced for prevention‐focused consumers; the studies also elucidate the processes underlying these effects. In addition, the promotion‐balancing effect, but not the prevention‐repetition effect, disappears if the second decision is unambiguously moral or immoral. These findings contribute to a better understanding of morality in the marketplace by showing that the prevention‐repetition effect from psychology literature arises in consumption situations, and the promotion‐balancing effect emerges as a new consumer behavior phenomenon.

Teaching Copyright: Moral Balancing in the Age of Appropriation

Teaching Copyright: Moral Balancing in the Age of Appropriation

The Creativity of Coping: Alternative Tales of Moral Dilemmas among Migration Control Officers

Street-level bureaucrats are routinely exposed to the conflicting expectations of their political superiors, target groups, and the general public, especially when tasked with managing individuals with precarious political, legal, and social status. Moreover, migration and border officials are confronted with tasks that entail both complex discretionary decision-making and coercive measures, where they have to balance a professional ethos with their personal moral values. Building on ethnographic fieldwork, including participatory observations and semi-structured interviews conducted with street-level bureaucrats working with migration control in several European countries, the paper explores the moral balancing acts of officials regularly faced with harsh work realities. Apart from often-cited coping strategies of blame avoidance, indifference and dehumanisation, we highlight how bureaucrats confronted with morally uncomfortable and often Sisyphean tasks respond to these challenges with creativity and sometimes eccentric approaches to their work. In doing so, officials take active part in shaping the ethics of migration control.

The creativity of coping: alternative tales of moral dilemmas among migration control officers

Street-level bureaucrats are routinely exposed to the conflicting expectations of their political superiors, target groups, and the general public, especially when tasked with managing individuals with precarious political, legal, and social status. Moreover, migration and border officials are confronted with tasks that entail both complex discretionary decision-making and coercive measures, where they have to balance a professional ethos with their personal moral values. Building on ethnographic fieldwork, including participatory observations and semi-structured interviews conducted with street-level bureaucrats working with migration control in several European countries, the paper explores the moral balancing acts of officials regularly faced with harsh work realities. Apart from often-cited coping strategies of blame avoidance, indifference and dehumanisation, we highlight how bureaucrats confronted with morally uncomfortable and often Sisyphean tasks respond to these challenges with creativity and sometimes eccentric approaches to their work. In doing so, officials take active part in shaping the ethics of migration control.