Letting people off the hook: When do good deeds excuse transgressions?

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

Volumn 36, Issue 12, 2010, Pages 1618-1634

  Effron, Daniel A ^a   Monin, Benoît ^a  

^a STANFORD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

hypocrisy; moral credentials; moral judgment; moral licensing; person perception; social judgment; transgressions

Indexed keywords

ADOLESCENT; ADULT; ARTICLE; DECISION MAKING; FEMALE; GUILT; HUMAN; HUMAN RELATION; MALE; MORALITY; PILOT STUDY; PUNISHMENT; SOCIAL BEHAVIOR; SOCIAL JUSTICE;

ADOLESCENT; DECISION MAKING; FEMALE; GUILT; HUMANS; INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS; JUDGMENT; MALE; MORALS; PILOT PROJECTS; PUNISHMENT; SOCIAL BEHAVIOR; SOCIAL JUSTICE; YOUNG ADULT;

EID: 78649238715     PISSN: 01461672     EISSN: 15527433     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0146167210385922     Document Type: Article

References (28)

1. Abernathy, R.D. (1989). And the walls came tumbling down. New York, NY: Harper & Row.
2. Anderson, N.H. (1965). Averaging versus adding as a stimulus-combination rule in impression formation. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 70, 394-400.
3. Asch, S. (1946). Forming impressions of personality. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 41, 258-290.
4. Barden, J., Rucker, D.D., & Petty, R.E. (2005). Saying one thing and doing another: Examining the impact of event order on hypocrisy judgments of others. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 31, 1463-1474.
5. Baron, R.M., & Kenny, D.A. (1986). The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 1173-1182.
6. Birnbaum, M.H. (1973). Morality judgment: Test of an averaging model with differential weights. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 99, 395-399.
7. Cialdini, R.B. (1988). Influence: Science and practice. New York, NY: HarperCollins.
8. Edwards, J.R., & Lambert, L.S. (2007). Methods for integrating moderation and mediation: A general analytic framework using moderated path analysis. Psychological Methods, 12, 1-22.
9. Effron, D.A., Cameron, J.S., & Monin, B. (2009). Endorsing Obama licenses favoring Whites. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45, 590-593.
10. Hakim, D., & Santos, F. (2008, March 24). G.O.P. Consultant says he reported Spitzer trysts in 2007. New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/24/nyregion/24spitzer.html?scp=6&sq=eliot+spitzer+hypocrisy&st=nyt.
11. Hastorf, A.H., Schneider, D.J., & Polefka, J. (1970). Person perception. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
12. Hollander, E.P. (1958). Conformity, status, and idiosyncrasy credit. Psychological Review, 65, 117-127.
13. Jones, E.E. (1990). Interpersonal perception. New York, NY: Freeman.
14. Jordan, J., Mullen, E., & Murnighan, J.K. (2009). Moral miscreants and unethical angels: Striving to achieve a moral equilibrium. Manuscript submitted for publication.
15. Krumm, A.J., & Corning, A.F. (2008). Who believes us when we try to conceal our prejudices? The effectiveness of moral credentials with in-groups versus out-groups. Journal of Social Psychology, 148, 689-709.
16. MacKinnon, D.P., Krull, J.L., & Lockwood, C.M. (2000). Equivalence of the mediation, confounding and suppression effect. Prevention Science, 1, 173-181.
17. Merritt, A.C., Effron, D.A., & Monin, B. (2010). Moral self-licensing: When being good frees us to be bad. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 4, 344-357.
18. Miller, D.T., & Effron, D.A. (2010). Psychological license: When it is needed and how it functions. In M. P. Zanna & J. M. Olson (Eds.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 43, pp. 117-158). San Diego, CA: Academic Press/ Elsevier.
19. Monin, B., & Miller, D.T. (2001). Moral credentials and the expression of prejudice. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 33-43.
20. Nisan, M. (1991). The moral balance model: Theory and research extending our understanding of moral choice and deviation. In W. M. Kurtines & J. L. Gewirtz (Eds.), Handbook of moral behavior and development (pp. 213-249). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
21. Powell, C.A.J., & Smith, R.H. (2009). The inherent joy in seeing hypocrites hoisted with their own petards. Unpublished manuscript.
22. Riskey, D.R., & Birnbaum, M.H. (1974). Compensatory effects in moral judgment: Two rights don't make up for a wrong. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 103, 171-173.
23. Sachdeva, S., Iliev, R., & Medin, D.L. (2009). Sinning saints and saintly sinners: The paradox of moral self-regulation. Psychological Science, 20, 523-528.
24. Stine, R. (1989). An introduction to bootstrapping methods. Sociological Methods and Research, 18, 243-291.
25. Stone, J., Wiegand, A.W., Cooper, J., & Aronson, E. (1997). When exemplification fails: Hypocrisy and the motive for self-integrity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, 54-54.
26. Tedeschi, J.T., Schlenker, B.R., & Bonoma, T.V. (1971). Cognitive dissonance: Private ratiocination or public spectacle? American Psychologist, 26, 685-695.
27. Trope, Y. (1986). Identification and inferential processes in dispositional attribution. Psychological Review, 93, 239-257.
28. Zhong, C.-B., Liljenquist, K., & Cain, D.M. (2009). Moral self-regulation: Licensing and compensation. In D. De Cremer (Ed.), Psychological perspectives on ethical behavior and decision making (pp. 75-89). Charlotte, NC: Information Age.