Moral licensing
Moral licensing (also free pass; English self-licensing, moral self-licensing, moral licensing) describes the psychological phenomenon that people without feelings of guilt can do a bad deed if they have previously done a good deed. The phenomenon can lead to a moral license.
Moral Licensing in Behavioral Economics
A Canadian study investigated the behavior of people who either shop in an eco-shop (group 1) or in a conventional store (group 2). It turns out that people were more inclined from Group 1 in the trust game to abuse the trust of another person. Another game showed that people from group 1 were more willing to lie and cheat than people from group 2.
Savings through more efficient technologies can lead to additional consumption through moral licensing ( mental rebound effect ). A Japanese study found that motorists who thought they bought an ecological car drove 1.6 times more kilometers in the first year after buying it than with their previous non-ecological car. Part of the possible savings is thus compensated for by higher consumption. Households can also let energy-saving lamps burn longer than conventional light bulbs and still believe that they are doing something for the environment.
Moral Licensing and Religion
A study from 2015 came to the conclusion that children from religious families are less likely to share and assess the mistakes of others more critically than children from non-religious families. The behavior of over one thousand children aged 5 to 12 from Canada, China, Jordan, Turkey, the USA and South Africa was examined. So were z. B. Children from Christian and Muslim households are significantly less inclined to share stickers than children from non-religious households. The more religious the parents were, the more pronounced the effect was. When asked whether and how minor misconduct by others should be punished, children with religious upbringing showed themselves to be stricter and advocated much tougher punishments than children from non-religious families. The results clearly contradicted the parents' assessment. In the case of Christian parents in particular, it became apparent that they assumed a particularly high level of empathy and a high sense of justice for their children. The scientists saw moral licensing as the cause. According to this, religious people see their faith as an achievement and so unconsciously justify egoism and intolerance that restrict prosocial behavior.
Moral licensing and nutritional supplements
In the 2011 Sun Yat-sen University study , one group was told they were receiving supplements (Group 1) and another group (Group 2) was told they were receiving placebos. It found that the people in Group 1 were less active and chose less healthy food than the people in Group 2. According to the scientists, taking healthy food supplements promotes the idea of being invulnerable, which can lead to people becoming themselves feel empowered to engage in unhealthy behaviors.
Individual evidence
- ^ W. Stangl, keyword: 'Moral Licensing' , Lexicon for Psychology and Pedagogy, 2019
- ^ N. Mazar, C. Zhong, Do green products make up better people? , Psychological Science, 21, 494-498, (2010)
- ^ A Merritt, DA Effron, B. Monin, Moral self-licensing: When being good frees us to be bad. , Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 4/5, 344-357, (2010)
- ↑ See e.g. E.g. Erik Poppe: The rebound effect. Environmental Policy Challenge. (PDF; 1602 KiB) Freie Universität Berlin 2013, pp. 39–41.
- ^ W. Stangl, keyword: 'Moral Licensing' , Lexicon for Psychology and Pedagogy, 2019
- ↑ J. Decety, JM Cowell, K. Lee, S. Malcolm-Smith, B. Selcuk, X. Zhou, The negative association between religiousness and children's altruism across the world , Current Biology, 25, 2951-2955, (2015)
- ↑ Wen-Bin Chiou, Chao-Chin Yang, Chin-Sheng Wan, Ironic Effects of Dietary Supplementation: Illusory Invulnerability Created by Taking Dietary Supplements Licenses Health-Risk Behaviors , Psychological Science 22 (8) 1081-1086, (2011), DOI : 10.1177 / 0956797611416253