Maybe I Am Not as Moral as I Thought: Calibrating Moral Identity After Immoral Action

Zhi Xing Xu; Hing Keung Ma; Yue Wang; Jian Li

doi:10.1007/s12144-017-9686-5

Maybe I Am Not as Moral as I Thought: Calibrating Moral Identity After Immoral Action

Zhi Xing Xu^*, Hing Keung Ma, Yue Wang, Jian Li

^*Corresponding author for this work

Centre for Child Development

Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › peer-review

5 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

How would people with a high moral identity deal with instances when they have not behaved morally? Cognitive dissonance theory and its revision, self-consistency theory, suggest that people would change their moral identity after committing unethical behavior; however, this process would be moderated by the self-importance of morality. In an experimental study with 87 highly educated young adults from Hong Kong and mainland China, we found that individuals calibrated their moral identity when confronted with evidence of cheating behavior; this calibration, however, was sharper for individuals with a high moral identity than those that with a low one. Possible underlying psychological mechanisms are discussed.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	1347-1354
Number of pages	8
Journal	Current Psychology
Volume	38
Issue number	5
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-017-9686-5
Publication status	Published - 1 Oct 2019

Scopus Subject Areas

Psychology(all)

User-Defined Keywords

Calibrating moral identity
Cognitive dissonance theory
Dishonest behavior
Experiment study
Self-consistency

Access to Document

10.1007/s12144-017-9686-5

Cite this

@article{3c8b353ae4574abeaf26d6c3fe8ad727,

title = "Maybe I Am Not as Moral as I Thought: Calibrating Moral Identity After Immoral Action",

abstract = "How would people with a high moral identity deal with instances when they have not behaved morally? Cognitive dissonance theory and its revision, self-consistency theory, suggest that people would change their moral identity after committing unethical behavior; however, this process would be moderated by the self-importance of morality. In an experimental study with 87 highly educated young adults from Hong Kong and mainland China, we found that individuals calibrated their moral identity when confronted with evidence of cheating behavior; this calibration, however, was sharper for individuals with a high moral identity than those that with a low one. Possible underlying psychological mechanisms are discussed.",

keywords = "Calibrating moral identity, Cognitive dissonance theory, Dishonest behavior, Experiment study, Self-consistency",

author = "Xu, {Zhi Xing} and Ma, {Hing Keung} and Yue Wang and Jian Li",

note = "Funding Information: This paper was based partially on a doctoral dissertation submitted to the Hong Kong Baptist University by the first author and was supervised by the second author. This study is supported by Youth Scholars Program of Beijing Normal University (BNU310422119).",

year = "2019",

month = oct,

day = "1",

doi = "10.1007/s12144-017-9686-5",

language = "English",

volume = "38",

pages = "1347--1354",

journal = "Current Psychology",

issn = "1046-1310",

publisher = "Springer New York",

number = "5",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Maybe I Am Not as Moral as I Thought

T2 - Calibrating Moral Identity After Immoral Action

AU - Xu, Zhi Xing

AU - Ma, Hing Keung

AU - Wang, Yue

AU - Li, Jian

N1 - Funding Information: This paper was based partially on a doctoral dissertation submitted to the Hong Kong Baptist University by the first author and was supervised by the second author. This study is supported by Youth Scholars Program of Beijing Normal University (BNU310422119).

PY - 2019/10/1

Y1 - 2019/10/1

N2 - How would people with a high moral identity deal with instances when they have not behaved morally? Cognitive dissonance theory and its revision, self-consistency theory, suggest that people would change their moral identity after committing unethical behavior; however, this process would be moderated by the self-importance of morality. In an experimental study with 87 highly educated young adults from Hong Kong and mainland China, we found that individuals calibrated their moral identity when confronted with evidence of cheating behavior; this calibration, however, was sharper for individuals with a high moral identity than those that with a low one. Possible underlying psychological mechanisms are discussed.

AB - How would people with a high moral identity deal with instances when they have not behaved morally? Cognitive dissonance theory and its revision, self-consistency theory, suggest that people would change their moral identity after committing unethical behavior; however, this process would be moderated by the self-importance of morality. In an experimental study with 87 highly educated young adults from Hong Kong and mainland China, we found that individuals calibrated their moral identity when confronted with evidence of cheating behavior; this calibration, however, was sharper for individuals with a high moral identity than those that with a low one. Possible underlying psychological mechanisms are discussed.

KW - Calibrating moral identity

KW - Cognitive dissonance theory

KW - Dishonest behavior

KW - Experiment study

KW - Self-consistency

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85029698102&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1007/s12144-017-9686-5

DO - 10.1007/s12144-017-9686-5

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:85029698102

SN - 1046-1310

VL - 38

SP - 1347

EP - 1354

JO - Current Psychology

JF - Current Psychology

IS - 5

ER -

Maybe I Am Not as Moral as I Thought: Calibrating Moral Identity After Immoral Action

Abstract

Scopus Subject Areas

User-Defined Keywords

Access to Document

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Cite this