Summary: Researchers found that when people face high-stakes decisions, they may lose sight of their personal morals—leading to more cheating and reduced charitable behavior afterward.
Source: University of Exeter.
New research suggests the familiar idea that “virtue is its own reward” does not always hold in professional settings. Acts of integrity can sometimes lead to more self-serving choices later on.
A study examining the psychological effects of what researchers call “moral licensing” shows how resisting a tempting, high-value opportunity to act selfishly can change later behavior. People who resist a big temptation can feel morally licensed to act less cooperatively or donate less to charity afterward. These findings have clear implications for how organisations design decision-making processes and try to prevent unethical conduct.
The study, led by researchers from the University of Exeter and the London School of Economics, indicates that conventional deterrence approaches may be incomplete. Instead of relying only on punishment or ethics training, organisations might reduce opportunities for large personal gains or distribute responsibility for high-stakes choices across several people to limit the chance of moral licensing.
Zoe Rahwan, who led the work while at the London School of Economics, explained: “When people behave honourably in the face of an opportunity to significantly enrich themselves through unethical means, they often become more self-serving and less cooperative immediately afterward.”
Dr Oliver Hauser of the University of Exeter Business School, a co-author, added: “Senior staff frequently confront high-stakes choices that carry personal advantages, making them particularly susceptible to moral licensing. To prevent the sense of moral virtuousness that follows resisting a personal gain from translating into subsequent uncooperative behavior, organisations could assign different decision-makers to separate high-stakes choices or reconsider the timing between such decisions.”
To explore these dynamics, the researchers ran an online experiment with 2,015 participants. Each participant played 10 rounds of a coin-flip task: they predicted a coin toss and reported whether the outcome matched their prediction. They received payment for reported correct guesses, creating an opportunity to lie privately with no external verification. The researchers compared reported results to statistically probable outcomes to estimate dishonesty.
After the coin-flip rounds, participants were told they could donate some or all of their earnings to one of several charities. The team measured participants’ moral self-perception immediately after the coin-flip task and again one day later to track both short-term and delayed psychological effects.
An important experimental variation was reward size. The study manipulated stakes across a 500-fold range—from a few cents to tens of dollars—to test whether larger rewards increase cheating. Consistent with earlier research, the immediate cheating rate was largely insensitive to stake size. However, the downstream effects differed: participants who cheated the least when stakes were high tended to give a smaller share of their earnings to charity afterward. In other words, resisting a large temptation produced a moral licensing effect that reduced subsequent generosity.
The researchers also observed differences in guilt and self-assessment. Many participants who cheated the most reported heightened guilt immediately after the task and felt even worse a day later. This pattern suggests that those who engage in maximal cheating underestimate the psychological cost of their actions—believing at first they will feel little moral fallout, only to experience increased negative feelings later.
Dr Barbara Fasolo, Associate Professor at the London School of Economics and co-author, commented: “Our results reinforce growing evidence that payoff magnitude is not the main driver of immediate unethical behavior—many people engage in small-scale cheating regardless of stake size. Importantly, we show that resisting large temptations carries a downstream cost in the form of reduced pro-social behavior, and that those who cheat most may misjudge how their actions will later affect their moral self-perception.”
Source: Kerra Maddern – University of Exeter
Publisher: Organized by NeuroscienceNews.com
Image source: NeuroscienceNews.com image is in the public domain.
Original research: “High stakes: A little more cheating, a lot less charity” by Zoe Rahwan, Oliver P. Hauser, Ewa Kochanowska, and Barbara Fasolo. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization. Published June 11, 2018. DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2018.04.021
Abstract
High stakes: A little more cheating, a lot less charity
This study examines the downstream consequences of cheating—and of resisting the temptation to cheat—under high-stakes conditions, focusing on subsequent pro-social behavior and moral self-perception. In a large online sample, the authors replicate the finding that cheating rates are largely insensitive to stake size, even across a 500-fold increase. Two new findings emerge. First, resisting the temptation to cheat at high stakes produces a negative moral spill-over: participants who resisted cheating in that condition donated a smaller fraction of their earnings to charity. Second, participants who engaged in maximal cheating mispredicted how they would feel: although they expected lower moral distress immediately after cheating, they experienced greater feelings of immorality one day later. The paper discusses implications for moral balancing, self-deception, and organisational design.