Moral cleansing and moral licenses: experimental evidence

Research on moral cleansing and moral self-licensing has introduced dynamic considerations in the theory of moral behavior. Past bad actions trigger negative feelings that make people more likely to engage in future moral behavior to offset them. Symmetrically, past good deeds favor a positive self-perception that creates licensing effects, leading people to engage in behavior that is less likely to be moral. In short, a deviation from a “normal state of being” is balanced with a subsequent action that compensates the prior behavior. We model the decision of an individual trying to reach the optimal level of moral self-worth over time and show that under certain conditions the optimal sequence of actions follows a regular pattern which combines good and bad actions. We conduct an economic experiment where subjects play a sequence of giving decisions (dictator games) to explore this phenomenon. We find that donation in the previous period affects present decisions and the sign is negative: participants’ behavior in every round is negatively correlated to what they did in the past. Hence donations over time seem to be the result of a regular pattern of self-regulation: moral licensing (being selfish after altruist) and cleansing (altruistic after selfish).

Die lateinische Epigraphie Hispaniens als Quelle für die keltische Gesell-schaft und Religion

Presentado en el III Workshop F.E.R.C.A.N (Fontes Epigraphici Religionum Celticarum Aantiquarum)

Autrigones, caristios, várdulos y berones. Contribuciones historiográficas (1983-2003) relativas a su evolución en época prerromana y romana

[ES] Se presenta un balance historiográfico con las propuestas y debates relevantes, originados a partir de la información, revisada o relativa a nuevos hallazgos, transmitida para estos grupos de población en los testimonios directos, arqueológicos, epigráficos o numismáticos, así como en las referencias correspondientes a autores greco-latinos.