Striving for the Moral Self: The Effects of Recalling Past Moral Actions on Future Moral Behavior

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin - Tập 37 Số 5 - Trang 701-713 - 2011
Jennifer Jordan1, Elizabeth Mullen2, J. Keith Murnighan3
1University of Groningen, Faculty of Economics & Business, HRM&OB, The Netherlands. [email protected]
2Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
3Northwestern University, Evanston, IL/USA

Tóm tắt

People’s desires to see themselves as moral actors can contribute to their striving for and achievement of a sense of self-completeness. The authors use self-completion theory to predict (and show) that recalling one’s own (im)moral behavior leads to compensatory rather than consistent moral action as a way of completing the moral self. In three studies, people who recalled their immoral behavior reported greater participation in moral activities (Study 1), reported stronger prosocial intentions (Study 2), and showed less cheating (Study 3) than people who recalled their moral behavior. These compensatory effects were related to the moral magnitude of the recalled event, but they did not emerge when people recalled their own positive or negative nonmoral behavior (Study 2) or others’ (im)moral behavior (Study 3). Thus, the authors extend self-completion theory to the moral domain and use it to integrate the research on moral cleansing (remunerative moral strivings) and moral licensing (relaxed moral strivings).

Từ khóa


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Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

Tập 37 Số 5

701-713

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