Moral Licensing and Cleansing Theory: A Study in Decision-Making, Morality and Interaction

The role of morality in the decision-making and behaviour of individuals has a long research history across a wide range of disciplines, and has led to oftencompeting descriptions and definitions of morality itself. While religious belief has been at the core of some previous work, hedonic models of morality have also been used to explain behaviour and decisions. However, such models leave many common behavioural patterns unexplained, with the theories unable to readily reconcile the conflict between expected outcome and observed reality. One proposal that addresses these failures is moral licensing and cleansing theory, also known as moral selflicensing. The theory of moral self-licensing, that individuals utilise an almost homeostatic mechanism to balance their internal moral state with either immoral or prosocial acts, has a strong research record in consumer behaviour fields. While a number of leading studies have more recently explored the theory from a psychological perspective, the body of literature covering this theory in the field of psychology remains limited. Over two experiments, this thesis sought to further explore how the theory may explain decisions in an array of situations more varied than previously utilised, and how it may interact with other factors in decisionmaking. Across various environmental/economic, academic and interpersonal hypothetical situations, Experiment 1 failed to find a significant effect of the utilised moral prime, nor a hypothesised interaction with the gratitude manipulation. Building on these results, and the theoretical and methodological implications, Experiment 2 replaced the gratitude interaction in favour of an internal feedback MORAL LICENSING AND CLEANSING ix mechanism; with a proposed interaction effect between this and the moral prime. Significant statistical effects were found for both the refined moral prime and the internal feedback mechanism, though in both cases such effects were mixed. In the moral prime, one condition reached significance while the other did not. Similarly, one condition of internal feedback resulted in a statistically significant effect while the other failed to reach significance. This thesis discusses a number of possible interpretations and implications of the mixed results, including the role of accessibility of scenarios and situations, the complexity of interpersonal relationship decisions and the scope of applicability of the theory in emotive rather than rational scenarios. This thesis also suggests a number of directions for future work on the theory, including the implications of different effects between sins of commissions against sins of omission in the examined decisions, and further work exploring the applicability of theory in more varied situations, amongst others. This thesis concludes by endorsing the theory as an explanation for various effects on individual decision-making and behaviour, though questioning the previously proclaimed pervasiveness of its applicability. MORAL LICENSING AND CLEANSING 1 Moral Licensing and Cleansing Theory: A Study in Decision-Making, Morality and Interaction Human decision-making is a widely explored topic within social psychology. It is also an increasingly diverse topic, with studies examining the ever-increasing dimensions that are involved in human decision-making. In cases where people are assumed to act as rational individuals, seeking out the option that balances risk and reward, normative models have long reigned supreme. Normative models make use of mathematical equations and principles to predict choices and behaviors. As Moser (1990) states, the first major normative model was Expected Utility Theory (EUT), which stated that people would always choose the option with the maximum expected outcome. However Schoemaker (1982), Starmer (2000) and Harrison and Rutstrom (2009), amongst others, have pointed to patterns of behavior that consistently violate EUT. Such observed violations saw the development of new cognitive theories, such as Prospect Theory (PT), the work of Kahneman and Tversky (1979). PT argues for a discounting model, where both prospective gains and losses are discounted, but losses are discounted more heavily (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979; Tversky & Kahneman, 1992). However, normative models such as EUT approach decision-making from an outcomes-centric point of view, assuming the individual to be a rational actor. Similarly, “consequentialist” theories such as PT assume that the decision-maker only takes into account consequences that may affect themselves, while ignoring others. Studies have demonstrated this is often not the case. For example, an individual whose decision-making is guided, at least in part, by their morality would MORAL LICENSING AND CLEANSING 2 doubtlessly consider the effects of their decision on others. Factual or computational factors alone cannot account for such decisions. Under such a decision-making situation, what is or could be true does not dictate what ought to be true. The question of morality, and the individual as a moral decision-maker, is one counter balance to the rational actor view. Exactly how one defines morality and acting morally has been the source of extensive debate and research, both within the psychology discipline (Sachdeva, Iliev & Medin, 2009), and other areas, such as religion, philosophy and sociology. In fact, Monin and Merritt (2012) argue that, overall, social psychology is a study of morality and moral hypocrisy. However, within the confines of this thesis, a more specific area of morality, and its role in decision-making, must be focused on. One such theoretical approach to morality and decision-making, is the theory of moral self-licensing and cleansing, also known as moral self-licensing. Over the following sections of this chapter, the links between morality and decision-making will be explored in greater detail, including how previous models of decision-making may be related to morality, the theory of moral licensing and cleansing, and how it explains influences on human behaviour. Further, this chapter will explore how other possible influences on decision-making, such as emotions, may influence moral theories of decision-making. The chapter will conclude with a description of the first experiment. Early Normative Theory EUT, developed by von Neumann and Morgenstern, was one of the earliest, widely accepted normative theories. As Plous (1993) and Moser (1990) outline, it argues for a rational agent, acting in a manner to maximize expected gains. MORAL LICENSING AND CLEANSING 3 Mathematically, the expected utility is the sum of the possible outcomes multiplied by the probability of success. As outlined by Kahneman, Wakker and Sarin (1997) and Kahneman and Tversky (1979), each possible choice an individual may make is termed a prospect. These prospects are defined as “contracts”, which result in the outcome xi, with a probability of pi. Assets that an individual possesses are then further taken into account; to form a final expected utility (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979). As outlined by Plous (1993), the rational choice at the heart of EUT was made up of 5 axioms: Invariance, Dominance, Cancellation, Transivity and Continuity. Invariance states that the order or manner in which alternative prospects are presented to the decision-maker will not influence their preference. Dominance states that if one prospect, A, is superior to another prospect, B, in one way, but equal in all others, then prospect A will be preferred by the decision-maker at all times. Cancellation affirms that if two prospects share any commonality, that commonality will be irrelevant to the decision. Transivity declares that if A is chosen as superior to B, and B chosen as superior to C, then A will be chosen over C. Finally, Continuity posits that a gamble between two opposing prospects, best and worst, with satisfactory odds is preferable to a certain intermediate outcome. Later Descriptive Models and Links to Morality: Regulatory Focus Higgins (1997; 1998) developed Regulatory Focus (RF) as an alternative choice theory, which used a social, as opposed to cognitive, approach. On a basic level, RF distinguishes between two states of motivation: promotion and prevention focus. Whilst different, both work to approach pleasure and avoid pain (Forster, Higgins & Idson, 1998). Promotion is the attainment of growth, advancement and MORAL LICENSING AND CLEANSING 4 accomplishment, whilst prevention is concerned with safety, responsibility and security (Crowe & Higgins, 1997). RF links gain with pleasure and loss with pain, and by doing so, Higgins (1997; 1998) argues that the presence of gain v loss leads to different decision-making tactics, all of which hold some basis in the decisions hedonic principle, as outlined by Camacho, Higgins and Luger (2003). Logically in RF, the presence or absence of gains is the required stimulus for promotion focus while the presence or absence of loss is required for prevention focus (Renshaw, 2008). In promotion focus the absence of a gain is viewed as a nongain, while in prevention focus the absence of a loss is viewed as a non-loss. However, a non-gain is not experienced in similar fashion to a loss, while a non-loss is not experienced as a gain, despite similar final states in both cases. Rather, gains are experienced more intensely than non-losses, and conversely, a loss is experienced more intensely than a non-gain (Idson, Liberman & Higgins, 2000). Idson et al. (2000) also demonstrated that prevention focus individuals experience criticism and negative feedback more intensely and strongly than individuals in promotion focus. Therefore, it is possible to argue that an individual’s regulatory focus may affect the experience of hedonic states, despite the same final state. RF is also one of the later descriptive models of decision-making, which most closely aligns with a view to the moral aspect of decision-