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).

Relatório de atividades : 2000

Relatório das atividades da Comissão de Direitos Humanos da Câmara dos Deputados no ano de 2000.

Relatório de atividades : 1999

Relata os trabalhos desenvolvidos pela Comissão de Agricultura e Política Rural no ano de 1999, com vistas à discussão dos problemas identificados no setor agropecuário e à busca de soluções.

Relatório de atividades : exercício 2011

Apresenta números de atividades da Comissão de Direitos Humanos de Março de 2011 a fevereiro de 2012.

Relatório de atividades : 2012

Relatório de atividades desenvolvidas pela Comissão de Direitos Humanos e Minorias em 2012.