Moral hypocrisy: impression management or self-deception? ¬リニ

• Moral hypocrisy was exposed both between-subjects and within-subjects. • We investigated whether hypocrites are self-deceptive — do they fool themselves? • People let a fair coin decide monetary allocations only if they could fudge the results. • Hypocrites placed a higher priority on Conformity values. • The results suggest the primacy of impression management concerns over self-deception. a b s t r a c t a r t i c l e i n f o In three studies (S1–S3; N = 256) we investigated whether moral hypocrisy (MH) is motivated by conscious impression management concerns or whether it is self-deceptive. In a dictator game, MH occurred both within participants (saying one thing, doing another; S1) and between participants (doing one thing when it is inconsequential, doing another thing when it affects payoffs; S2). People were willing to let an ostensibly fair coin determine payoffs only if they could fudge the results of the coin flip, suggesting that hypocrites do not deceive themselves (S3). Also supporting this view, MH was associated with adherence to Conformity values (S1– S2), indicative of a desire to appear moral in the eyes of others but not indicative of self-deception. Universalism values were predictive of moral integrity (S1, S3). What motivates moral action, the desire to be moral or the desire to appear moral in the eyes of others? A groundbreaking series of studies conducted by Batson and colleagues uncovered the commonness of moral hypocrisy (MH), the motivation to appear moral yet, if possible, avoid the cost of actually behaving morally failure to behave morally may also carry costs; the awareness that one is acting immorally threatens one's self-concept (e.g., Griffin & Ross, 1991). Guarding against such awareness, and thereby facilitating moral transgressions, is self-deception, a state in which " one's true motivation is masked from oneself " (Batson et al., 1997, p. 1346). In the present study, we sought to contribute to research on the prevalence and mechanisms of MH. By definition, MH involves motivated impression management or other-deception, wanting to give the impression that one is more moral than would be warranted by one's behavior. We investigated, in a series of straightforward dictator games, whether MH is also self-deceiving. Besides experimental manipulations , we also approached the distinction between self-deception and other-deception from the perspective of individual differences. Particularly , the motives underlying MH were investigated within the framework provided by Schwartz' …